Writing for me is therapeutic so I am putting this here in my space. It is about addiction, but not to nicotine this time. It is about my drug addiction to a prescribed medicine and my two year battle to get off of it. It may become long, dark, and violent. I have no “finish” in mind as I write this. I don’t even know where I’m going with this. Reader discretion is advised. I do not suggest ANYONE do anything that I did. Remember, I am an addict, an asshole, and a douche.
Here goes.
I was on Cymbalta for 4 years. Four plus years ago my second daughter was born and I had a very hard time balancing a 3 year old girl, a newborn, a wife that worked nights and weekends, a shitty job, life, maintaining the ninja lifestyle etc. Mrs. Evil talked me into “talking to someone”, something I was against, but for the sake of our marriage I was willing. After 15 minutes of talking, the psychologist I was seeing wanted to put me on meds to control my OCD (which I admit was getting a little insane) and this “depression” he said I had. He called his RX writer, doctor friend, who had no issue writing a script for a mind-altering drug for someone that she had never met nor knew anything about. Like an asshole I took the pills. Side note – she first gave me Paxil but that had adverse effects on my “piece” so I had to change.
Yes, Cymbalta worked to lessen the grip of OCD, but it made me an emotional nothing. No moments of mania. No moments of sorrow. No feelings of any kind. I was basically deader than ever. Friend died? No feelings. Daughter busted her head open. No feelings. Dog died? No feelings. Teenager shot outside of my office? No feelings. Mother in lawÂ’s suicide? No feelings. The future? No feelings.
After 2 years I started to see the light that this “medicine” was not helping and was only masking me off from who I really am…me. I am not a happy go lucky guy. Never was and don’t want to be. I have no friends and I’m fine with that. I don’t like being physically touched and dislike people in general. However, I enjoy talking to strangers and have always gotten along better with criminals, junkies, and near-do-wells. I am a cynic and not afraid to speak my mind. I enjoy living my life as a line in one of my favorite songs goes, “if I offended you, oh I'm sorry...But maybe you need to be offended. But here's my apology and one more thing...fuck you! “
Insurance wasn’t paying for the quack psychologist anymore so I needed someone new to intervene. I went to my “Primary Care” physician and told him I wanted off this drug. He kept trying to push me off to a psychiatrist, but I was done “talking about it”. All I wanted to talk about getting off this shit. He wasn’t going to help me, so fuck him. I told me off and was escorted out of the hospital by security (if I was really nuts wouldn’t they have taken me to the crazy floor?).
Now, for those of you crazies that are on medicines and they are doing you good. SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH. What do I need a shrink for? I can do this on my own. I have a PH fuckin D in Google, bitch! Like a junkie, I sat in my car each morning and opened the capsule. I carefully removed 10 of those tiny little ball things (and threw them on the floor of my car). I did that for a week, then started removing 20 little ball thingys each day. By the time I got down to pulling about 50 out I was in hell. My brain had been rewired and was full blown addicted and I was weaning my noodleÂ’s drug. I was seeing spots. Seeing bugs crawl around that were not there. The brain zaps were deafening. I was miserable and saw that I was in over my head. No psychologist.
No physician. Nothing. Alone again. Somehow I managed to keep it together enough to be sane around my kids and always went to work. I later learned that the term hallucinating is only used when you see dead people, which I did not. Too fucking bad. I would have loved to talk to Elvis or John Lennon while sitting on the shitter instead watching imaginary cockroaches race around.
I found a new Primary Care physician minutes from my house. I told her all along that I wanted to get off the drugs. She too tried to pass the buck to a shrink. What I then realized was NOT that she and the other doctor didnÂ’t want to help me, they just didnÂ’t know how. ItÂ’s very easy to put someone on these drugs but getting them off is not so easy. I hounded her, begged her, to get me off the drugs. I was matter of fact when I said that going to a shrink was not an option. (See the irrational addict mind here in all its glory?) After a few moments of silence she said she would help be but it had to be done her way, the long way. With weekly visits WITH MY WIFE to get her input on changes in my behavior. Her plan was going to take about a year.
At this time, my chronic back issues came back with a vengeance. I have massive spinal problems and have had surgery in the past, knowing that more surgery in the future was a very likely outcome. I was having trouble standing, walking, and sitting. The pain was getting to be too much, which for me to say is really something. I begged my doctor for something to manage the pain but was denied. She didn’t want to add a drug into the mix “of all the other medicines I was on”. Really? The only medicine I was taking was the shit I was trying to get off of. Long story short, we had a “fuck you session” and I left her practice. Addict brain at its finest. I saw her no different than the drug pushing MD. Instead of maybe getting a kickback from the drug manufacturer she was billing insurance weekly hundreds of dollars for a 10 second conversation with my wife and me. I may be an addict, an asshole, and a douche but the healthcare and insurance system in the country is far more fucked up than I have ever been.
At this point I was new to KTC and thought that if I can quit dip cold turkey I could quit this shit too. I wanted to reach the HOF free of all drugs. Again – I do not advise anyone to follow my lead. I beg anyone reading to work with their doctor. I studied the “half-life” of the drug and researched withdrawal. I figured I would be in for a few days of hell. Understatement of a lifetime!
24 hours in, the brain zaps were bad and only got worse and more intense by the hour. Seeing things. Physical pains. Thoughts of homicide and suicide (only passing thoughts). Abdominal pain so intense while trying to sleep at night I thought I was being ripped in half or beaten with a sledgehammer. I jammed a dinner fork deep into my arm for no reason. I had become a “cutter” like an EMO teenage girl that felt alone. I was burning myself intentionally hoping that the physical pain would overtake the mental anguish. Of course I lied and denied everything to Mrs. Evil when she would ask about blood on a shirt and shit like that. She would show concern when I would take things out of the oven without an oven mitt with a laugh and a smile, and would then watch the blisters rise while we ate. I reassured her that she and the girls were never in harm’s way and that I had to keep doing this. I had to keep going thinking I was over the worst of it and didn’t want to relive the horrors of “day 1” again. Mrs. Evil knows me well enough to know that when I have my mind set on something trying to talk me out of it only strengthens my desire to continue. She did make me swear that I had to tell her right away if the “Really bad thoughts” involved her or the kids. Of course I agreed and they never did.
This Hell of all hells lasted for a solid six weeks of pure hell unlike anything I could have ever imagined. I reached the HOF drug free. No nicotine, anti-depressants/OCD, or opiates for chronic pain. Nothing. It took another 35 days past HOF for the brain zaps to fully stop. I am not cured of anything, especially being an addict, asshole, and douche.
