I have never been one to choose to take medication. I didn't use recreational drugs as a teen or young woman. I learned early that alcohol is NOT my friend. I developed what I now know is Atrial-Fibrillation when I was 20, although it went improperly diagnosed until I was forty-nine. A doctor told me it was Supraventratachycardia and no big deal. He did prescribe a medication for it, but I waited until I was in my 30's to take it.
I had always had allergies, but took no medication for it until we moved to Las Vegas in 2000 and I developed asthma. It was bad enough that I had to eventually be put on 5 different allergy and asthma medications. I did refuse all of these medications, at first, but eventually had to take them, and still do. I went through menopause starting at age 29, and refused hormone treatments because of my family history of breast cancer. I had both of my babies drug-free.
I found out that Mike (my husband) is an alcoholic when my children were babies. It was bad, but I stayed to protect the kids (or so I thought). By the time we moved to Las Vegas he was a raging-fall-down-got-a-dui alcoholic. We saw a family therapist for a short time who recommended I ask my doctor for an anti-depressant because I was severely depressed. I took it because, by then, I didn't care any longer about not taking medications. All the hard work I did to refuse recreational drugs, alcohol, and prescribed medications didn't matter anymore.
I tried working a few times but my daughter needed me at home, and then I found out that Mike would sneak around my workplace to keep an eye on me. After both children, adults now, graduated from high school and the oldest married, it occurred to me that I could spend money on myself instead of everyone else. Mike made really good money in Las Vegas and I didn't need to work, so I learned to scrapbook and make cards. I already knew how to sew and knit. Joann's and Michael's became my second home. I would walk into those stores and the creativity would course through my blood. I spent a LOT of money there.
I decided that decorating my house would be fun, after working in the home department at a department store. I got a discount for working there, and found that if I got their credit card, I could save additional money with their deals. I found old products in the stockroom that were marked down to practically nothing, and with my discounts, I got them for almost free! I was hooked! After I quit, I saved coupons for different stores. Decided I LOVED Breast Cancer Awareness in October because I could find everything that ever existed in PINK! I have multiple small appliances and kitchen gadgets in pink, and just about anything else I could imagine.
I bought yard after yard of really cute fabric even though most of my money and time went towards scrapbooking and card making.
In 2007, I'd had all I could take of Mike's drinking and told him to get help (even though he had half-heartedly tried before) or he would have to leave. He went to a large church in Vegas who recommended a counselor and Mike saw him. He came home and said the guy was great and wanted to involve the whole family. After many months, many thousands of dollars, ripping our family apart, reducing me to suicidal depression, and Mike still drinking, we quit and found out later that the guy bought his counseling license and hated women. He turned our son against me and Mike got a letter the day before Mother's Day 2008 saying our son wanted nothing more to do with me. It took two-and-a-half years, and my mom's insistence for him to come back to the family.
Sadly our finances were hit hard by all of this and 4 years later we had to file bankruptcy, a year later we lost our home to a short sale, Mike quit his job because two years in a row his company reduced his pay by half (he believed they were trying to make him quit, so did I). My dad said, "Move in with me!" He still lived in my childhood home in California. My mom had passed away the year before and my Dad said he was lonely. After just a few days of living with my Dad I began to feel that we were unwanted. Then he would walk around with his fists clenched, violently angry. My brother kept telling him that we were there to take over the house and get rid of Dad, which was completely untrue. At the beginning of the fourth week there, I began repacking my things, and at the end of the fourth week, I went back to Las Vegas and stayed with our daughter and her boyfriend for another four weeks. Meanwhile, Mike stayed with Dad looking for work anywhere in the country, since California didn't seem to have any jobs. At the end of the 8th week of this nightmare, Mike got a job in Nebraska, put all our belongings in a POD, drove up to Vegas and the next day we headed out, leaving everything and everyone we knew and loved.
I began having panic attacks. I was in a numb depression (I likened it to being in shock) that got worse every day. We stayed in a Motel 6 with our five dogs for eight days while Mike worked and I looked for a house. On the 8th day, I had a panic attack/meltdown that shook me to my core! We were finally approved for a rental house, but Mike was at work, and it was up to me to gather our belongings, get the dogs in the car, and go sign the lease while my dogs sat in the car with it running because it was so hot and muggy out. I was a wreck and could not calm myself.
We got moved in, I got a job at the Walmart deli, my puppy started having behavioral issues with some of the older dogs and there was lots of blood, and the panic attacks became a regular thing. Even though Mike SWORE he wasn't drinking, I knew he was. In March 2014, I drove to work, sat in my car with a huge panic attack and could not force myself to go in. So I went home. I quit my job and things got a little better, but I was alone at least ninety percent of the time. Over the years, my doctor increased my anti-depressant twice, gave me another anti-depressant in addition to the original, and after being taken to the hospital by paramedic because I thought I might be having a heart attack and finding it was a panic attack, my doctor prescribed an anti-anxiety medication. I began to improve.
Fast forward to last week. I was out of two of my mental-health medications and was trying to wait till Friday when we got paid to get them. Tuesday I realized I couldn't wait so I called them in. One needed a doctor's approval. My doctor left the practice back in March and a Physician's Assistant took over her patients. She is young, aggressive, and good. I liked her. Till last week. When she held one of my medications hostage until Friday. I was not doing well. I had a wellness visit for Friday, but the PA was holding approval of my medication till after I saw her. I fell apart on Thursday, not well for lack of medication, spent the entire day crying, called the doctor's office several times, never getting to speak with the PA, and got told it was all my fault for not calling in the refills a week early. I took a shower, went to bed at 5:30 p.m., and stayed there until 6:30 the next morning. I literally lost my mind last Thursday. I regret the things I said to people at the doctor's office, to Mike, and for unloading on my poor sweet daughter! And I am mad that I am so dependent on medications that I tried so hard to avoid most of my life!
It is now Sunday, three days later, and I still don't feel right. I think this one is going to take a while to get over.
