I've been worried about me lately. (Self-absorbed much, TC?) In late April, early May, I had what I've had to admit was a little nervous breakdown, a mini mental collapse, as it were. I knew what was behind it--a story I will some day have to chronicle on this blog, if only for peace of mind--and nobody 'blamed' me for losing it. Still, lose it I did. It was the single scariest month or so of my life. I never want to go there again, if I have anything to say about it. So, despite my overwhelming reservations about psychotropic medications, I accepted them wholeheartedly--first ativan, which eerily erased an entire week from my mind, making it second only to the breakdown itself in things I want to forevermore avoid, and then zoloft, which, simply put, saved me.

Fast forward four or five months. Not only has my mental health been somewhat restored, but an apparent low-level depression has lifted, my libido has returned, and my emotionally debilitating PMS seems to have gone away as well. That was, until last week, when things started to spiral out of control again.

What's the trigger? Best I can tell, there is none this time. But I'm having full-blown panic attacks again, though only one every day or so for a little while as opposed to spending literally 24/7 in panic mode. And my temper is back, along with the sub-par parenting that accompanies it.

I was really, really worried on Tuesday, when I was in such a funk that I took a mental health day from work and still couldn't force myself to even take a shower. Then, Wednesday morning...my period. Aha. Now it begins to make sense again. Maybe not the panic attacks...but then again, maybe even they fit into the scheme of things now. Maybe having had the experience I had has changed my body chemistry so that stress automatically clicks on panic.

So the question is: what does this mean? Is the zoloft no longer working? How am I going to get a handle on this before it spirals out of control? How much of this is a sort of mental-health PTSD, a self-fulfilling prophecy where my fear of 'it' all happening again actually makes it happen? And why, oh why, did I let myself stop seeing a therapist, knowing I wasn't close to 'fixed?'

Like I said, I'm worried about me. I wonder what I'm going to do about it.