Well That Explains a Few Things

I had a doctor’s appointment last Friday to get a refill for one of my medications. Simple, straightforward. I wasn’t looking for any changes with it. As is standard with this office, at the beginning of the appointment the nurse had me fill out anxiety and depression checklists. No problem. Going through the anxiety one I confirmed that I was not, indeed, anxious. And I didn’t consider myself to be at all depressed. Except….as she asked me those questions I realized that I was actually a 1 or a 2 on quite a few of them (on a 0-3 scale). In the previous two weeks I had been having some trouble sleeping, or feeling overly fatigued (which I had chalked up to still getting over my Covid booster, which knocked me out with fevers and general ick for four days the week of Thanksgiving). Come to think of it, I had had less of an appetite. I was having problems with not being motivated to do things, or simply not wanting to do things I typically enjoy doing. How did all of that sneak up on me without my noticing?

The worst part was that I knew I had done this to myself. Sheesh. Because about two weeks prior, I had made the decision to stop one of my medications (I take two) to see what would happen. I was prescribed Trazodone when Kendall was ill to help me with sleeping, and I had been taking it ever since. It did seem to help some with those nocturnal panic attacks, or being able to quiet my brain down enough at night to sleep, even though I’ve only ever taken the lowest dose. I didn’t want to be dependent upon a drug to be able to sleep, though, so on a whim I decided I would stop taking it and see if I could sleep without it. (Yes, I had previously confirmed with my doctor that that particular medication is OK to stop taking without any sort of “weaning” needed, that many people only take it “as needed.”) I also was hoping that not taking it would make it easier for me to wake and get up in the morning, which has been difficult for me as it’s gotten darker and colder. And while I didn’t sleep great without it, especially those first few nights, that only seemed like further confirmation to me that I really did want to power through and train my body to be able to sleep without it before I became overly dependent.

Except here’s the piece I didn’t know. Trazodone is also an anti-depressant. And turns out that even at its lowest dose it must have been helping me in that capacity, because without it I was starting to slump. Really, had I known about it being an anti-depressant, I probably wouldn’t have chosen to go off of it in the middle of this first holiday season without my mom, or the dreaded “the second year is usually worse” season without Kendall.

Because yes, there have understandably been some grief triggers for me and my family. There have also been some triggers surrounding my cousin who is battling a rare cancer right now, as my heart has hurt so much for their family. I had the opportunity to attend and help a bit with a fundraiser they had last Saturday, and all of the talk about Huntsman, chemo and radiation, how hard it is on kids when their parent has cancer (their four kids are the same ages as mine), medical bills, and the questions I answered about Kendall’s cancer and treatments, I did feel somewhat emotionally drained by the end of the day. I know their experience is different from our family’s, and certainly we hope and pray there will be a very different outcome, but I so wish I could shield them from any pain or trauma. Although intellectually I do know that there will be blessings for them as well through all of this, and it wouldn’t be fair of me to rob them of their own smelting experiences.

I’ve noticed that when I have grief triggers I can sometimes become more critical than usual, can too easily fall into a negative mental loop, can be a lot harder on myself. I’ve caught myself a few times in the past two weeks complaining about something, and that is not how I want to view and respond to life. Because wow, are there so many blessings. There are always those other (positive) things that are true, even in hard moments. I’m sure being back on an anti-depressant has helped, but I’ve been making a very conscious effort the past few days to identify and express thanks for those things, both to myself and to my Father in Heaven. It hasn’t taken much of a shift for me to once again feel that joy and gratitude buoying me up throughout my day.

It has also helped that I have been more intentional about my scripture study, as recently I had gotten into a routine of more “checking it off” of a mental list of things I’m “supposed” to do, rather than using my scripture study to draw closer to my Heavenly Father and receive the personal messages He would have me hear. Certainly feeling the Spirit more adds to those feelings of joy and gratitude.

So as people have asked me in the past few days how I am doing, it doesn’t feel hard or disingenuous to say I’m doing really well. Despite there being plenty of “firsts” (or “seconds”) with the holidays, it’s actually not feeling that heavy or stressful for me. Sure, Thanksgiving was different and we missed Mom horribly, but it was OK and good to get together with family. The kids and I also decided to have a simpler Christmas this year, and instead of a lot of presents we’re paying it forward by supporting various charities or causes and focusing more outward than inward. It doesn’t feel like we’re merely surviving through this season like it did last year, at least for me.

I am usually a put-the-decorations-up-right-after-Thanksgiving kind of person, but I haven’t been stressing this year that the Christmas decorations are not all up yet (although we do have some key things done like the tree, the stockings, and the lights on the house). My kids had intended to finish decorating while I was up in Ogden last Saturday, but that got derailed when they discovered a dead mouse (!!!!!) in one of our bins of decorations. Eew, eew, eew! I’m still hopeful that I’ll be able to salvage some of the things in there, but I haven’t had a chance yet to empty and go through everything (wearing gloves and armed with LOTS of disinfectant, of course). But we’ll get there before Christmas. At least I’m pretty sure, ha.

Now to fully embrace this season of kid concerts, holiday parties, and friend gatherings. Happy holidays! (And here’s a short photo montage of a few things we’ve been up to the past month and a half. Oh, and all of the Meal Train emails have been imported over, so if you haven’t gotten an email and were expecting one, please subscribe! And don’t be shy about leaving a comment!)