Chapter 1: The ‘Label’ that Changed My Life

Living in Port Elizabeth and wanting to build a lucrative career.  At age 23, I had high hopes but soon realised that reality was just a bit different to the picture I had painted in my mind.  I thought I was happy, well sort of, but after the massive change in my life, I became ANXIOUS!  It was ruling my life and consuming me day and night.  I battled to sleep for a long time.  I then went to see a psychologist in the hopes of trying to figure it all out.  She was a lovely lady and sent me to my GP to get medication for it.  I was diagnosed or shall I say ‘labeled’ with Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and prescribed Effexor 75mg.  I was told I would probably be on it for the rest of my life.  It was as if it was just another everyday occurrence for the doctor.

I took a job selling cars!  Yes, me, selling cars!  I didn’t last very long and three months later I found myself working for a labour broker with not much infrastructure.  A few months in, and my husband was told that he was being transferred to Johannesburg.  Shock! Excitement! Anticipation! Nervousness! Mixed emotions! What now?

Enough to send some people into anxiety mode!  There was that word again, anxiety!  I was also bulimic, I forgot to mention that. It had been going on for awhile but got worse when I was anxious.  (The psychologist had told me that depression and bulimia were by-products of the anxiety and that the anxiety was the main issue.)

Once we moved to Johannesburg (May 2004) everything seemed to go really well.  The bulimia went away, I found a good job as a Marketing Executive in the cellular industry, bought a new car and we made some great friends in our new city.  We got a second kitty and life was good.  (I suppose I need to mention at some point that I am a cat person.  I absolutely love cats! And they have often saved my life.)

During this time we had run out of medical savings so I had to start paying for my Effexor myself.  It was getting too expensive, so I decided to start cutting back and taking one every second day.  BIG mistake!  I started getting dizzy spells, blackouts and what they call “brain tremors”.  I could not drive my car and felt completely out of control of my body and mind.  I went to see a GP and I asked him if these symptoms could not be linked to me lowering the dosage of my medication and he said ‘no’.   He sent me to a Neurologist who did an EEG and a whole lot of other tests on my brain because they thought I was epileptic.  The tests were all normal and we managed to surpass our self-payment gap with our medical aid just in that short space of time.  At least that was exciting news…Discovery would start paying again! But I still had to get to the bottom of my screwed up symptoms.

I had found a new hairdresser in Edenvale and I went to have my hair done one day after work.  We were chatting generally and I was telling her about what I was experiencing and that I had suspected the feelings I was having were linked to me reducing my medication.  She told me that she was on the exact same medication and was trying to wean off because she wanted to have a baby.  She was experiencing precisely the same symptoms as I was.  (It is quite ironic that it cost me R400 to have my hair done and figure out what was wrong with me)

The seed was planted and I realised the power of the drugs that I was taking.  I immediately went back to get my repeat script so I could go back onto them everyday.  I just wanted normal again while I figured out a way forward.

To be continued…