nine hundred sit ups a day*

*from the Paul Simon song Outrageous:
"It's outrageous to line your pockets off the misery of the poor.
Outrageous, the crimes some human beings must endure.
It's a blessing to wash your face in the summer solstice rain.
It's outrageous a man like me stand here and complain.
But I'm tired. Nine hundred sit-ups a day.
I'm painting my hair the color of mud, mud okay?
I'm tired, tired. Anybody care what I say? (no)..."

My mother is into apple cider vinegar.

By into I mean she's decided that apple cider vinegar is a cure-all. Or a cure-much. Following several conversations that she and I had about serotonin reuptake, SSRI's and our family history (battle with) of depression, Mom started reading more about serotonin and stumbled in this "miracle" cure.

When I spoke with her on Mother's Day, she told me how she was now taking apple cider vinegar daily. I'm assuming, since she said that she went to a health food store, that she is drinking the unflitered "mother" variety, the kind that looks like a science experiment gone awry. She is very excited about this new regimen and said, in a very strident tone, "well, it's better than drugs."

My response was "well, I'm not so sure that it's better than drugs for everyone Mom, but I'll be curious to see how this works for you."

(Good daughter, good daughter, here, wear this foil star.)

The truth is, I've been knawing on her words ever since they entered my brain. And I've decided that I have to call her and have a little talk about the attitude she continually takes re: SSRI's. Drugs are bad, mmmmm kay. Let's suffer instead, shall we? Let's all sit in a circle with our little shot glasses of unfiltered vinegar and sing We Shall Overcome and then we can all do our shots and feel superior to those who have been duped into thinking that a pill can make them better.

Fuck. All those years I spent resisting, rejecting, denying that I was depressed. I'd been brainwashed by a family who saw the ingestion of psychopharmaceutical medication as one's inability to deal with your own shit. It was weakness, plain and simple, and you just had to pick yourself up and move on. Period. Nevermind that this line of thinking ran directly alongside the line of thinking that said drinking alcohol is void of any kind of drug-like associations. Drink all you want! Alter your brain chemistry with martinis and its A-okay! Really. Oh really. The hypocrisy kills me.

I don't like taking an SSRI every day. It's not my idea of a good time. I don't like fearing the day I'll go off of it, for good, afraid that I'll be reduced to a quivering mass, much like I was before I took anti-depressants. I don't like thinking that there haven't been enough longitudinal studies that disprove the line of thinking that SSRI's actually deplete your serotonin over the long haul and make it harder to stop the drugs. Am I just like those innocent people in the 50's who were led to believe that cigarettes were harmless and then ended up suing the tobacco companies? Am I setting myself up to fall even harder than I did pre-SSRI's?

There are trade offs, yes. My libido pays, but I'm still orgasmic. Moreso than ever, thank you. I sleep better. I have more energy to devote to getting in shape. And the biggest bonus of all? I don't live with an albatross of anxiety on my back. I don't obsess. For example: pre-SSRI, I couldn't deal with conflict. It would consume me. Let's say someone sent me an email and was angry or I got a phone call from a co-worker who was disgruntled over a decision I'd made. All semblance of stability was gone. I couldn't rest until there was resolution. It didn't matter if it was "my fault" or not. Blame was irrelevant--I couldn't see anything clearly, didn't have the ability to let it roll off my shoulders. I would worry. I would pace. I would compose long explanations on the computer then erase them and start again. Eventually I HAD to confront/talk through it with the person in question or I would NEVER let it go. I wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything else. And I'd cry. Long jags that lasted for hours. I'd walk around the house and weep, occasionally catching myself in a mirror and thinking "I hate you you ugly bitch."

Yeah, harsh but true.

So when I talk with my mom and she tells me about her own struggle with anxiety...when I talk to my sister who is so anxious she has a permanent refill of Ativan at her disposal and was once taking it every four hours just to be able to get through a day...when I watch my brother excessively exercise and work like a dog and never seem happy...when my mother tells me, for the first time (last week) that my great-grandfather committed suicide...I wonder: why am I the weak one? Why am I the one who "gave in" and not the one who Got Out?

Our over-prescribed culture is making it hell for those of us that truly need help conquering the debiliating effects of depression. I'm tired of defending my choice to take anti-depressants to people who think I've sold out or think I should have tried something more "natural." Bully for those for whom such things worked. They didn't for me. And I almost took my own life as a result. I almost stopped breathing just so I didn't have to deal anymore: deal with my family and their roiling dysfunction; deal with the naysayers who always think they know better and have an answer for everything (nothing worse then a dilettante in hippy clothing who will defend weed to his dying day but damn if anti-depressants aren't the work of the devil himself); deal with the people like a former roommate who told me that if I went on anti-depressants I'd be a zombie and she wouldn't want to live with me anymore...

So I guess I should ask my mom this: you want me chugging vinegar or you want me dead?

She'll love that one.