I decided now was a good time to taper off my antidepressants.

In the four or so years I’ve been on Lexapro, plus the Wellbutrin I added a year or so later, I haven’t had any episodes of burrowing under a blanket on my bedroom floor convinced that my family would be better off without me. My self-esteem stayed solid in the face of criticisms and strife. Feathers didn’t ruffle. Shit didn’t fly. The barn remained standing in the storm.

But I was tired all the time and I lost my sexy mojo. I lost some passion and with it, some writing I may have done went unwritten.

In 2011 I chose meds as a last resort. I’d already done therapy (twelve years’ worth), yoga, diet, supplementation, self-help books, and I made a few lame attempts at meditation, half-believing I’d turn into the Jewish Elizabeth Gilbert along the way.

On the medicated path I became a fitness trainer, boot camp instructor and Strong First Girya kettlebell instructor. All of these achievements bolstered my confidence, supplemented by the drugs. Lifting heavy weights—barbells, kettlebells, tires or simply my own body—produces in me a rock-solid sense of not only physical but emotional strength. It’s a training mode I’ve come to embrace.

So now with the days getting longer and brighter, I miss how awake I could be. How intimate I could be with my husband of twenty years, who I still love and still think is a total hottie.

A few weeks into my taper, down to fifteen from twenty milligrams of Lexapro and totally off the Wellbutrin, everything is five milligrams more intense. I’m five milligrams more alive, orgasmic, and free of chemicals that caused me horrible withdrawal symptoms when I mistakenly thought I could quit cold turkey.

I stopped drinking too. Again. By the way. Finally ready to sit with the boredom, tedium and itch to escape my responsibilities and first world woes.

But the caffeine stays.

I meant to write an entirely different post. About deadlifting and Popsugar and throwing my back out. But the way I write, I open the “new post” page and let ‘er rip. Whatever shoots out of me is usually good enough and something I must’ve meant to say in the first place.

I’m scared of getting debilitatingly depressed or anxious again. It’s a terrible place to reside—the fucked up mind. In a couple weeks I’ll be ten milligrams less medicated. All I can do is try.

In anticipation,

Elise