the happy pill has turned into a death warrant

On June 13, 2004, my sixth year wedding anniversary, my husband threw one last temper tantrum and left the family for good. He never did give me good anniversary presents, why should I think this one would be any better? And all I did was ask him to take a walk with me. There were sooo many issues within this marriage/relationship that truly are worth discussing, like the verbal and physical abuse, the mental illness that I found out he had after I married him, the financial abuse, and so many others, but I am not going to speak of any of those. I am going to speak of what happened to me, and my son, after he walked out. Which, I might add, was the biggest blessing in disquise that ever happened in my life.
We had just moved from Dayton to Columbus a month and a half before then. We had rented a very nice home in a beautiful community in the heart of Columbus, my son was in first grade and getting used to his new surroundings. But now I would have to find a little apartment for just him and myself, perferrably in the same neighborhood so I wouldn't have to disrupt him again into a new school district. I had just started a new job, and I was sooo trying to keep it together. My husband was constantly beligerant and mean to me whenever we saw eachother, so hurtful. Needless to say I was becoming depressed. I was trying to hold it all together for my son.
I found an apartment, very cute, had a pool, it was perfect for us. It was on the expensive side, I had alot of difficulty paying the rent. My husband didn't pay child support, refused to help us at all financially. I had been in this relationship with him for 15 years, we decided to marry when I became pregnant. So being on my own again was a big change and proving to be difficult for me. I was depressed. I would start crying for no reason at all, I became irritable toward my son, I just wanted to sleep 24-7. I started drinking more than ever. Luckily I hooked up with a new friend at work who became very supportive for me. She suggested I go to a Dr. and see about getting on some kind of anti-depressant. 
Thats exactly what I did. I found a good neighborhood Dr. explained to her the trials and tribulations I was experiencing and she said yes indeed.. you are depressed let me give you a pill. She told me I had a chemical imbalance. The Dr.'s tend to tell everyone that  there is a chemical imbalance in the body, which is the reason for depression, but you wouldn't BE depressed if there wasn't a chemical imbalance,  This is why they have no problem giving them out so freely.
Now it is 2011. I have been on these happy pills for almost 6 years, not thinking anything about it. For all I knew, these happy pills were keeping me sane, they were making me less irritable towards my son, they were making me not sweat the small stuff, and most importantly they were making me happy, in every situation that arose it didn't matter, because I was on happy pills. And it was ok to be on them for almost 6 years because my Dr informed me that they weren't addictive. When I started taking them and they worked there way into my system, I noticed that I started laughing a little more, I started going out a little more. Things that would usually upset me didn't seem to bother me at all, and oh no, did I gain 10 pounds? Oh well it doesn't matter because I am on happy pills and everything is fine in my world, did I gain 10 more pounds? No biggie, I am going to go out with my friends and get drunk and have such a fun time. I am happy, I have nothing to worry about. Are they really going to shut off my electric? Oh well it doesn't matter, I am happy. Is my son really upset at school??? No way. Oh well, he will do his best I am sure, let me just lay here and he can be in his room and play as many games as he wants for as long as he wants. It's not a big deal at all. Have I gained 20 pounds more??? Wow that really sucks, oh well nothing I can do about it now. My son doesn't seem to talk much to people, he doesn't seem to have many friends and seems to be afraid to make new friends. Oh well I am sure he is doing the best he knows, he'll get out of it. I'm just going to lay here and not fret over anything. Oh MY did I gain 40 more pounds??? What a bummer, I am loosing my apartment and now have to move in with my brother that lives in another town to save some money. Damn. Oh well, no problem, my son will get used to the new area. It will all be fine, no worries.

What is written above is extremely minimal to what was truly experienced. Without even knowing when or how, I stopped caring, I stopped living, I didn't care if I lived or died. I didn't care about how my house looked, I didn't care about how I looked, I didn't care that I was so far in debt that they were shutting everything off around me. I gained 80 pounds, I let my son eat and do whatever he wanted. I stopped living, litereally, I existed, thats all I did, exist. If I died tomorrow, I didn't care, in fact if I killed myself... I didn't care. Sometimes I even asked my self, what happened to the old me? I just blamed it on my marriage being overwith, never ever did I even question if it could be the anti depressant pills I was taking.....until recently.

For some unknown reason when I ran out of my prescription for the happy pills, I made a conscious decision to not get them refilled, I don't know why I made that decision, I just did. On the second day of not having them, I noticed that I had a constant feeling of vertigo, looking up and down, looking left to right, there was a very unpleasant trailing feeling in my head. It felt like my brain was always playing catch up with my eyes and what I was looking at. I was feeling nauseas, and didn't feel like eating. Mentally Iwas hateful to everyone around me. I was irritable, the mood swings were unforgiving, one minute I was laughing, the next crying, one minute talking normal, the next yelling and screaming. What was going on with me?

Then I remembered that I stopped taking the happy pills. Please reader...if you get nothing else from this blog...get this...ANTI-DEPRESSANT PILLS WILL KILL YOU!! They may not kill your physical body (although if it weren't for my son, I could have easily killed myself and not thought twice about it) but they will kill you mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. They will shut you off from the rest of the world. You will stop caring about anything and everything, you will stop living. You will only exist. Reader I want you to not only read these words I want you to feel them. If you take the kill pills, your life will end.

Now that I have been off of them, I feel like I have awoke from a very long dream, the fuzziness in my head is gone, I have matured, grown up. It was like for the first time in six years I looked in the mirror.  I started seeing again, started caring again, and I started realizing things again and being responsible again. I literally missed out on 6 years of my life. The saddest thing that I realized is that I missed out on my sons life. I wasn't there for him. This little sweet angel, who's family had broken up, and what he knew as his happiness came falling down all around him when he was only 6. He had no one to go to about it, had no one to ask him if he was ok, had absolutely no one to talk to. He learned how to live the best way he could, by himself and he was only in 1st grade when he had to do this. How aweful is that????

Yes reader, these pills will kill you, take my word for it, your life will be over, you will just exist and that is all you will do. If you are thinking of taking anti-depressants, I beg you not to. Call upon your friends, your family, get involved in something to take your mind off of the traumatic experience you are going through right now. Say positive affirmations over and over to yourself, call upon your God, go to support groups, do anything you can to relieve your pain other than the death pills. Don't think or worry what other people may think about you for speaking up about what you are experiencing or feeling. Always remember that what people think about you is None of your business...and continue expressing your feelings, get them out of your system...just please don't put the anti-depressants into your system. LIVE YOUR LIFE and FEEL YOUR SELF WORTH!!!!

And I also need to mention that when you have been on them for many years, the withdrawals are horrendous and can last for months. Something the Dr.s do not inform you of  when you start taking them.