The Architect of My Own Cross

I was today years old when I learned SSRIs can make your period super heavy and painfully biblical.

Perhaps you’re wondering how.

Well—after almost two years completely antidepressant-free, I started to suspect I might be a little down. Cue evidence that now feels underwhelming: I was bored at my new job (too much free time is its own kind of problem), frustrated that the economy and Trump have more say in our ability to move than our effort or finances, and we were crawling out of a long, dark winter.

In hindsight, maybe that wasn’t chemical. Maybe that was just… life.

Addendum: at one point, I also worried I was masturbating too much—which, historically, antidepressants solve by turning me into an asexual eunuch in a chastity belt.

So I started 12.5 mg of Zoloft. A quick Google will tell you that’s barely a dose. My body will tell you it’s still plenty.

I used to take 50 mg daily for years—seven, to be exact—then 100 for a year, then 150 for a few months before I finally tapered off two years ago. Every increase made me feel worse, not better. And every time I said that, the solution was the same: more, or different, or both.

Adjust. Increase. Repeat.

Anyway. It turns out there are things worse than being bored with your life, listless at work, and vaguely sad when it’s pitch black at 4 p.m.

For example: feeling like someone is repeatedly driving a knife straight into your gut until all you can do is cry and—literally, yes literally—throw up from the pain.

Did you know orgasms can lessen menstrual cramps? That regular orgasms can make periods lighter, easier, more manageable?

Three months ago, I was writing about how light mine had gotten. Maybe it was the masturbation, I thought.

Then my brain, in all its wisdom, decided: no, actually, you’re unwell. You just have too much time on your hands to fuck off. Literally. 

So I took a pill that killed the desire to do the one thing that helped—

and replaced it with something that makes it worse.

I am the architect of my own stupid cross to bear.

I went into the woods, picked the tree, hacked it down myself. Dragged it home. Carved the cross. Hammered in the nails.

And now here I am, two oxycodone and a swig of Pepto-Bismol deep, while my husband paces and asks if we should go to the ER, and I’m like, “It’s natural—what the fuck are they going to do?”

Watch me, the martyr, refusing even a sip of water like it means something.

But here’s the thing—

I haven’t cried at a single commercial for kids with AIDS.

So.

You know the SSRI is working.