There aren't many good things I can say about having OCD and GAD, especially since I have them severely enough to disorder my life. Prior to children, I had them just enough to think I was weird but not enough to keep me from eating, sleeping, functioning. A baby changes everything according to Johnson & Johnson....but the marketing team for that campaign doesn't know the half of it.
I guess I can think of 2 benefits of having discovered that now I have these conditions badly enough to warrant 1. a diagnosis, 2. a psychiatrist, and 3. long-term medication use. One is that I am much, much, much more compassionate towards any person with any kind of psychological issue. The one area of my body I thought I could control was my brain---a delusion I suspect most people have---so there is something especially upsetting to know that even your brain can turn against you. Your thoughts can become a great torment.
The 2nd benefit, I guess, occurred to me today.
I had my 24-week test for gestational diabetes so I didn't take my Lexapro in case that potentially would have a negative impact on the results. I awoke at 7:00, began drinking the nasty glucola shit at 8:30 and arrived home around 11:00 (there was some shopping in between there, so I wasn't stuck in the doctor's office forever).
My mom had come over to watch N, so once I got home, I was trying to get mom's opinion on how I should decorate N's new big-girl room. N was asking repeatedly, "What are you guys talking about?" and wiping her sunscreen-covered hands all over her newly painted walls (we were actually discussing home interiors while preparing to go to the pool). Seeing those greasy handprints on those fresh walls just about did me in---I could feel a timebomb ticking in my head---utter aggravation that might soon explode if we didn't get going soon (and soon is not anywhere written in a 3-year-old's book on how to live life).
At first, I couldn't understand why I was getting so mad over the handprints. N has left greasy sunscreen handprints on other walls of my house, but I haven't felt a rage building over it. So why now????? It really bothered me that I was feeling so angry.
AHA!!!! I didn't have my pill this morning. What relief! And so I quickly took it, went to the pool, and felt much more stable.
For a minute, I stewed over the fact that I can't keep my moods in check for 3.5 hours without my meds. What a shame that I can't control my brain and moods without having to rely on some chemical.
But I know that my irritability and frustration careen out of my control far too easily without my meds. Aside from being miserable internally and feeling horrible guilt for being too harsh, I think I would be a detriment to N's development as a hopefully, psychologically well-balanced person.
But then, I thought, "At least I have a condition where I can see an immediate need for my meds, and I am smart enough to know it is in my best interest to take them." It might be harder if I felt totally fine without my meds but still had to take them. If I had high blood pressure or high cholesterol. I'm sure as I age, I will have one or the other of these or some other silent condition, but I guess the benefit to having a condition as a relatively young person is that I can feel and experience immediate reminders of why I take the meds I do.
I used to spend an awful lot of time thinking, "Maybe someday I'll get off my meds," and sometimes I have a moment or two of this now, but mostly I just know I am a much happier and healthier person with them. And as much as I'd like to not need the meds, I can't control my hormones or my brain chemicals or the fact that I've got a double-sided family history of anxiety and/or depression. I control what I can control...and that is getting help, being responsible to my family, and taking the best possible care of my brain as I can.
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