I want to warn you up front, this will be a heavy read. I’m going to go into some detail on my mental health crisis and eventual rebound. It’s long, but so is my fight. I will try to keep it as lite as possible, but it has been a six year journey to this point. I’ll end with how I’m doing now (spoiler: pretty good). It’s my hope that sharing my experience may provide encouragement to someone who is going through something similar.

Backstory

I’ve always been a little anxious and intense. I pushed myself hard in high school and my first stint through college, and then through police academy 20 years ago. I was actually fortunate enough to get full-time employment with a local police department within about 8 months of graduating from the academy.

I remember how much I’d poured into my perceived identity as a police officer, and what it was going to mean for my family. I caught on to most things pretty quickly. After my very first second shift/midnight shift double, where we spent the midnight shift on standby with riot gear at the ready in response to a risk of civil unrest that fortunately never materialized, I’d gone to sleep at 4am. At 6am, in a dream, I heard a police radio squelch tail (a beep after someone has keyed up to transmit and then released). At that very moment, I bolted straight upright in bed, adrenaline flooding my entire body. I immediately needed to used the bathroom.

Over the course of the next several hours, I remained in fully fight-or-flight response. I felt sincere dread that nothing would ever be okay again. My first full-blow panic attack. I went to the ER to get evaluated and received a couple days worth of the benzodiazepine Lorazepam.

Over the next few weeks, I experienced constant dread/fear/anxiety when I was out of uniform. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t think about anything else. I wasn’t even afraid of getting hurt in a fight, or getting stabbed or shot. My fear was that I wouldn’t or couldn’t do a good job. Soon, I came to the decision that police work was not going to be for me.

Quitting the police department was like losing a family member. I’d nurtured this dream for years and saw it come to fruition, only to have it slip through my fingers, with no one to blame but my inability to keep it together. I felt emasculated. I was completely lost.

Over the course of the next 2 years, I worked a couple warehouse jobs, and started back to college. Then I started in entry level PC Support. The first night, I had another panic attack. I reasoned that if I decided to quit my new job, I’d be able to go back to sleep. That was unrealistic. Hello, Impostor Syndrome…

Over the next decade, after NOT quitting my PC Support job, I rose up the rungs of IT infrastructure. I took citalopram (an SSRI) to keep me reasonable, but overall I’d overcome the early days. Or so I thought…

A relapse

In 2018, I left an employer after a month-long decline in my mental health. Call it anxiety/depression, or call it burnout. Either way, one day, enough was enough. I left without a plan. I was in no place to wait until I had a plan. I had to get out. So I did. Being a person of faith, I “let go and let God”, so to speak.

The first week, I didn’t do much. I was in no shape to think about the future. I was honestly mentally preparing for us to lose everything we’d worked so hard for up to that point. I didn’t know if I would or could find work. My wife and I drove around one day searching or a place to get some sort of counseling. It seemed like a good idea; we had to try something.

The second week, we had a trip to Orlando (Disney World) and Anna Maria Island planned and paid for before things started to sour. I determined that whatever happened on the other side of that week, I’d go and have a good time. So I did. I event felt good enough to start looking at IT jobs, and sent out my resume. I took a couple callbacks later that week. All hope was not lost!

From the cliffside leap to starting a new position, it was only a six week process. I’d somehow dodged a bullet and we didn’t lose everything. I was contract-to-hire but I knew I had good odds of being converted to full-time after the 3 month contract was up. And that’s what happened! I didn’t even have a panic attack during this time!

For about 4 months, I’d been going to counseling with a licensed therapist. I was also seeing a psychiatrist, and was prescribed a higher dose of citalopram for maintenance, as well as Alprazolam (Xanax) for emergencies. While I was doing what needed to be done at work, I was catatonic at home. Anxiety and depression were building up, and darkness was enveloping my psyche. I used to stare a little too longingly at lottery billboards that promised to shower me with cash and take me out of the rat race.

Just after Christmas, I mentioned in passing to my therapist that, while I was not planning on acting on it, I was almost daydreaming of ways I could end my life. I thought it was a harmless thought exercise. My therapist knew better, though, and by that afternoon I was booked for a one week stay, with the intention of addressing my lack of medication response.

That week gave me a chance to really evaluate what I was about, and what I wanted out of life. My citalopram was switched out to venlafaxine (an SNRI), the Xanax, that I wasn’t taking anyway, was switched to some sort of super charged anti-histamine (for fear of acquiring a dependency on Xanax.

Following that drastic but necessary week, I knew I didn’t want to end my life. I didn’t want to give up. But there was a long road ahead of me. Little did I know that five-and-a-half years later, I’d be writing this blog post, from the other side.

My catatonia outside of work continued in earnest for at least 2 years after that. We added Rexulti to my medication list, and I was at least calm, if not slightly sedated. I was much quieter and less vibrant. And if I got stressed, I suffered from a condition called psychogenic dysphonia – I’d lose my voice.

Eventually, I rediscovered reading, and started devouring books. It was something more than watching TV, and quieted my subconscious so I could have a reprieve from the darkness. I also discovered an appreciation for fishing magazines. One of my favorites was Field and Stream until it stopped publishing after its 125th anniversary issue.

During the pandemic, I also sought a few challenges. I obtained my Technician and General Amateur Radio licenses, and began operating on the air occasionally. On the work front I studied for and earned a couple professional certifications. I was making progress.

About three years into my dark time, we impulse bought a new house. You read that right. We weren’t looking, but we fell into an opportunity, and were in a financial position to take advantage. Had the opportunity come one or two years earlier, I wouldn’t have had the capacity to process and adjust to all the upheaval that comes with moving.

In the fall after we moved into the new house, I worked feverishly on a data center migration project for work. I was the technical liaison, drawing diagrams, submitting firewall rule requests, and strategizing with the business unit who was making the move. This continued through early February, and before many remote meetings (still COVID-era) I’d find myself getting worked up and gagging/dry-heaving. It happened so often that I started to laugh at myself. It was silly.

That next spring, I received a promotion at work. They were certainly pleased with the value I was delivering, regardless of how I saw myself. I cut my venlafaxine dose in half, under the care of my psychiatrist, and continued to make progress. At some point we cut the venlafaxine dose in half again, where it’s stayed since. I went from 150mg/day to 37.5mg/day.

The last two years have been like waking up really slowly. Confidence and contentment have been winning out. I’ve been exploring my christian faith more deeply, even leading a church small group we host in our home for the last year. I started a project at work in January that I’ve been really excited about, and we’re seeing success as we progress through the year.

If you’ve followed my blog, well, you know I started a blog. I also got into vintage stereo equipment.

The Present

This brings us to the most recent six weeks, as of this writing. Rexulti, prescribed as an adjunctive therapy for Major Depressive Disorder, was getting hard to find in stock to refill. At my last check-in with my psychiatrist, we agreed to switch me to Abilify, and begin tapering me off this class of medication altogether – if and only if I don’t have any relapses.

I may have jumped the gun a bit, but I was on 2mg/day of Rexulti, and got 1mg/day of Abilify, and immediately halved those pills. The only comparison I’ve been able to find was someone on Reddit (it’s on the internet so it has to be true!) suggesting that Rexulti was 5x stronger/more effective than Abilify. Mathematically, I was taking 10mg worth of Abilify in the form of Rexulti (not apples to apples, I know), and now I’m taking .5mg.

Let me tell you what’s happened since I made that change:

• While on Rexulti, I was sleeping 11-12 hours a night. Now, I can only sleep 6-7 hours.
• I’ve lost 11 lbs without really trying. I’m more outgoing and talkative. I look forward to the day’s challenges ahead at work.
• I stopped biting my finger nails
• I planned out my professional development in the form of certifications I’m pursuing for the next 3 years and shared it with my boss.
• I took a long weekend for July 4th, and during that time decided to try to start up a consulting side hustle in addition to my primary employment
• I’ve gotten interested in testing technology again in my home lab – I resurrected my old rack-mounted server, updated one Linux laptop, and obtained another laptop and dual-installed Fedora and Kali Linux on it

Since stopping Rexulti, and tapering off Abilify, I feel like I’ve finally woken up again and am more of the me I used to be than I have been in a really long time. I have no plans to change my venlafaxine dosage for the foreseeable future. My psychiatrist and I agree we have a good thing going on the maintenance dosage.

If you’re reading this and you’re in the thick of the fight, I want to encourage you to stick it out, play the long game. Work with your support system to navigate the days you don’t want to get out of bed, the mood swings, the quietness and lethargy. Thank your family, friends, and care team for being there when it’s not easy to be. Things can and do get better.