My holiday season this year was nuts. I spent most of December going on red wine, gourmet marshmallows (seriously, I had amazing neighbors at my holiday market), and very little sleep. With all of the stress that came along with filling holiday orders, running a booth that was open every day for 10 hours and the rest of my life, I made a fatal error in self-care and let my antidepressant prescription expire.
I made the bad assumption that so many make: I didn’t need my prescription any longer because I felt fine. I’ve been on the lowest dose of Wellbutrin for about a year now and was doing fine. I mention this only because my goal of using an antidepressant was to use as little as I could so that I wouldn’t rely on it.
Wellbutrin got me back to 0, if that makes sense, but it was never going to put me up higher than that. I wanted to work on the rest of it myself, via diet, exercise, therapy, etc. But in November I missed my refill and in December my rx had expired. Now it’s January, I’m back below 0 and I don’t have the holiday rush to distract me.
My depression comes in the form of apathy and exhaustion instead of sadness, where sitting on my couch watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia for 12 hours straight and eating too many granola bars seems like a fine day, indeed.
I’m fully aware of the work that has to be done: the blogs that need writing, the podcasts that need recorded, the social media, plus orders of my products that need to be shipped. But I can’t do it.
Instead I write unconfident texts to my doctor, asking her to renew my prescription, and hope that tomorrow I will have a little more energy to get to work.
I don’t write this with the hopes of giving you tips on how to overcome depression as a business owner. I write it because I know I’m not the only one who gets this way, especially in winter. I know how depression can affect a person and how frustrating it can be when you’re battling with yourself. I may be many things, but I know I’m not lazy or flaky, so it’s doubly frustrating for me to get few things done.
If you’re reading this when I publish, or later on, know that I understand what it’s like and that I know it’s easier said than done to just “get over it.” You’re still a strong and driven person, today was just a setback. Tomorrow will be better.
5 comments
Love the honesty in this post Megan! Many more people than we know struggle with some form of depression at some point and so it makes me so happy when we can dialogue more openly about it like this. Here’s to accepting the low days and pushing through to the tomorrows!
Thanks, Robyn! It’s sad there’s still a stigma, but I feel like the more we talk about it, the better it gets for us all!
Hi Megan! I have also been dealing with the same issue and I’m on the same medication as well, I’m wondering did the higher dose which is what I’m on, work for you or not? Thanks for the post!
Hey Farris! I’m still on the lowest dose of Wellbutrin, so I can’t say if a higher dose would work for me or not. I think it depends on the goals you want to accomplish with medication (if that makes sense). I’m happy it sets me back to 0, without putting me higher on that, so I can focus on the issues and try to better myself without worrying about too many side effects (or becoming way WAY too reliant)
Thanks!