I may get less angst ridden soon. My antidepressant prescription was refilled tonight. I’ve been on Wellbutrin for six months, and it’s been the miracle drug. It’s like having the walls and the tunnel vision of depression smashed open. It gave me the motivation and the hope to live my life this summer. Without it, I cannot be all I’m capable of: since going on it, I have simply become better at my job, at my volunteer work, in my life.
When there was a doubt that my new insurance, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, might not cover it, I almost lost it. I can’t afford the $150 tab a month to stay sane, and I didn’t have enough medication left to cover a waiting period while I got my doctor to write a generic prescription that I could have filled at a discount Internet pharmacy. So when I missed pills on Saturday and Monday, I decided to let the half life go, and went off it this week. And today, when the drug finally ran out of my system, I started to get sick – hopeless, miserable, and with a headache to kill.
Even I can’t muster Zen in the face of hardcore antidepressant withdrawal.
But it was approved today, and now I’m back on it, and I’m going to be jittery this weekend while I readjust, but I have my brain wiring back to what it should be. I look at the drugs, now, not so much as a sign of weakness that I’m not trying hard enough to adjust my brain chemistry, but as a way to re-wire my brain into what it should be. The Wellbutrin is how I get my brain to work properly enough to channel my spirit into the world. And without it, I don’t think I could run my life at the 110% that I like to run it at (two jobs, kickball, Code Pink, parties, friends, etc)
Blue Cross/Blue Shield, by the way? Bastards. I had to wait a week to get them to talk to my doctor, and then process the request. One more thing to deal with, how I’ll get the drugs I need to function if this ever happens again…but for now, I have a move to go through with, and a surf shaque to occupy, and finding out a backup source of medication will have to wait until next week.
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