Saturday, November 24, 2012

Sweet relief

So it appears that I managed to survive Thanksgiving week. The holidays are always a major point of anxiety and depression for me. Even without the aspect of not having my mom here, I miss my family. We're constantly barraged by messages of family and togetherness and these messages are ramped up around the holidays. It makes me think of my decision to move so far away, and how I'm missing out on spending those moments with my sisters and brother, father, friends, nephew and niece. I want to be able to sit down to dinner with my sister and her kids, have a beer and watch football with my dad, and exhange gifts with my baby sister while we hug and talk about Christmases of our childhood. And while I am welcomed into a fantastic family via my in-laws and Matt, I still spend a lot of time thinking of my mother and how awful that last Christmas that I got to spend with her was, and how the awfulness of it was really my fault.

It's a lot to weigh on my shoulders and the messages of the holiday and the sappy movies and songs just seem to make it so much more. Looking at the first major hit of the season, Thanksgiving, without antidepressants seemed really daunting.

On Wednesday I had gotten a doctor to call in my prescription refill of Prozac. I told her I used the Walmart pharmacy in Mechanicsville. We went up there that evening to pick it up and it hadn't been called in. I tried to call the clinic, but they were already closed by the time I found the number. The next day was Thanksgiving and it looked like it might be Monday before I would be able to get things smoothed out. 

Thanksgiving Matt had to work, so I was going to go with his parents to his aunt's house for their get together. That morning I cried and worried and fretted, and almost begged not to go. I still went, however, though the idea of being surrounded by so many strangers without Matt by my side just seemed like nightmare fuel. At first, it was hard. I found a stool in the corner of the kitchen, out of the way but closeby to Matt's parents. Most of the people I recognized and knew by name were already there, and it wasn't so bad. Then the house began to fill up as families that I didn't know poured into the kitchen, talking, laughing. The world just got so loud. I stayed on my stool, and busied myself with nibbling on cucumbers, counting the number of times I chewed. Eventually as people said their hellos, and then dissippated to the other areas of the house in smaller groups, things got easier. And easier, and easier.

By the time the meal came around, I was able to chat and relax, and I was even a little sad when it was time for us to go. The first hurdle was done and over. At home, as I was alone, it got hard again. Alone in the quiet is when the worst of my thoughts come out and I struggled to keep myself busy and focus on things that would keep my mind away from the dark areas of my thoughts.

The next day on little sleep, Matt and I ventured out for Black Friday shopping. That deserves it's own post, I feel, but it went well enough. I tried to call the clinic again later in the morning, still closed. However, an hour later we got a call from Walgreens saying that I needed to come pick up a prescription today or it would be cancelled. Apparently my doctor had just called it in to the wrong pharmacy. We went up there on our way to Matt's parents house so that he could have some Thanksgiving grub and found that this entire time Walmart hadn't been billing my insurance correctly for my medication. We got my Prozac from Walgreens for free.

I can't even describe how relieved I felt. While  I know that since I went a week and a half without it, I'm likely starting over again and it may be another couple of weeks or more before I get relief from the Prozac, but the doctor attached quite a few refills to this one so I'm happily optimistic that this will not be happening again. Now I need to find out how much the charge for my insulin would be from there and we might just be switching over fully from Walmart.

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