Side effects may include WTF, minus F.

Alone by Metin Canbalaban.

Back when my doctors insisted I go onto Zoloft (a very bad idea indeed), I got fat, depressed, but it didn't really affect my sex drive per say, other than being fat and depressed. My husband did not understand. If fact, he was more than vaguely lacking in the sympathy department, something I still am harboring a spark of resentment about.

Lest you think of me as a grudge mongering bitch, I'll explain.

I was whining about being fat. My husband has always had Issues (capital I) with his blood sugar, and I have witnessed I don't know how many bajillion binges of him eating peanut butter and honey by the tablespoon, pouring maple syrup (or honey) straight into his mouth from the container, eating chocolates or cookies or freaking anything until there's nothing left- my son knows my hiding places for sweets in the house, my husband does not. Does that say anything much? I think it does. I repeat: my twelve year old is privy to the secret location of candy, and knows my husband is not to be clued in, ever. I believe I have painted a clear enough picture about that. Ok. So there I was, whining about the Zoloft making me fat, and my beloved husband ever so sympathetically says to me, "You know, you wouldn't have a hard time losing the weight if you would just stop eating all the time."

*sound of screeching brakes*

Was he actually stuffing Teddy Grahams and mini Reeses Peanut Butter Cups into a tablespoon of peanut butter and eating it when he said it? I don't know. I do have a picture of him doing that, however, and it's in a file on my computer labeled, "All The Time". As in, I could lose weight if I wasn't eating ALL THE TIME. This coming from the freaking Binge Master himself. He still had a nice metabolism going at the time.

And then his doctors put him on Paxil? Celexa? I forget which was first. He's tried quite a few. It doesn't matter which one he's on, they all have had the same effect of making him, oh, how does one nicely say it....?

Fat.

His eating habits haven't changed. A little, maybe. For a while he was eating better. For a while he was working out. Then he stopped and took up smoking instead.

*more screeching brakes*

Oh, shit on a Pop Tart, are you kidding me? Blech.

For the record, I did bring up the subject of my All The Time folder, which is no secret. It also now contains pictures of him asleep on the couch, fat gut poking out of his shirt, snoring all to hell and beyond. The pictures aren't for anyone to see but me. I want to remember.

That by itself maybe seems weird. I get it. One time I found a letter in my mom's stuff, a horrible little letter my step dad had written her when they were in a very bad place, having a hard time, and it was a nasty little piece of work indeed. I was in my teens, and decided me going through her stuff and getting busted for it was worth confronting her about it, because I read that letter and wanted to knock my step dad's teeth out. It didn't matter if I wasn't getting along with my mom either, I would defend her against some OTHER human trash talking her, especially HIM. She just looked at me funny, kind of a stony expression I wasn't used to seeing with her, and told me she was keeping it.... to remember. "WHY?" I implored her. She wanted to keep it to remember how mean he could be. I didn't understand at the time. I didn't understand until I was much older and had men put me through the ringer repeatedly and realized that the signs were there, sometimes over and over again, but I managed to conveniently forget them. I started keeping track. Finally I understood why she kept it. A person can put up with a whole hell of a lot of emotional abuse before their spirit is so crushed they can't get up the nerve to leave. And after two relationships like that in a row, I started keeping notes. I still do. The All The Time folder is almost a joke, really. The shit we've gone through the last few years got far uglier than that. That was... a thoughtless, insensitive thing to say. Since he's been on SSRI's and has gotten fat no matter how he fought it (at first) he is, um, far more sensitive to my plight. Well, it's his plight now, because I outright refuse to take them again, EVER. So guess who is fat now and who isn't?

I don't rub it in his face. I did just bring it up the once, gently, delicately, because it did hurt me so badly when he said it. It was important to me to make sure he understood the sense of helplessness behind the weight gain, and to just imagine for a moment if I said something like that to him... his face clouded over and he apologized. Good enough. Did I erase the folder? No. I've got journals to go with it.

Really though, that's not what this post is even about. It's the background, the details, giving you, the reader, a sense of the texture, the depth, the feeling behind what is currently bothering me:

I miss having a sex life.

His sex drive is nearly nil. After a discussion in counseling one day, we agreed that Yours Truly needs some new sex toys, STAT. You see, MY sex drive is just as revved up as ever. The er, shoe, is on the other fat foot now, as it were. Now we're trying to work around the week of my cycle, my state of pain (chronic), feelings of exhaustion (either of us), the usual mood swings that anyone has, if my son is asleep, if my husband can get it up/keep it up/get off, his feelings of physical attractiveness, and now, to add to all THAT, him smelling like a freaking ashtray, holy freaking turn off Batman.

Sex life? What sex life?

The anxiety that he suffers from makes any discussion of him changing meds a potential nuclear explosion. We did discuss it in therapy last week, and his shrink made a note in his chart. The other doc (same building) that does his meds (not therapy) had an assitant call the next morning to get him in to make an appointment and talk about his medication.

(sigh)

He heard the voice mail and immediately flipped out. The man had a panic attack about making an appointment to go to his doctor and get on a better medication that would help him stop having panic attacks. That was two weeks ago, and he still hasn't called to get that appointment. I really don't know how he could drive home the need for better medication any clearer than he has by that reaction. When I reminded him yesterday (via text, I'm no idiot), he responded that he had one next week, was that not soon enough? (Can you hear the tick tick tick in that loaded question? Geez.) It was the appointment he already had, so he just wanted to wait (three weeks) until then. (Shakes head) Ok. It's a hard subject to discuss. With him, I mean, not in general. One time when we were discussing it he accused me of not understanding, of having no idea what he was going through, did I not understand that this was a physiological condition he had and nothing he could control?!?

It took everything I had not to scream and laugh at the same time. Who the hell does he think he's talking to? I've had panic attacks since I was twelve! They only worsened over the years. I've been on almost every piece of crap SSRI out there and a pile of other medications that can be used on an off label method for anxiety over the last ten years! What the hell would I know about it? Hi? Hello? That's why that one doctor put me on Zoloft, that whole me getting fat thing, remember my darling husband? The time you insisted I try it anyway, despite my utter horror at what could come of it, because it was, I believe you told me, "for my own good." And months later when I was still having panic attacks and was then also fat and horribly depressed (my usual SSRI reaction, duuuuh), you told me to "stick it out for a few more months, maybe the effects are cumulative?" at which point I got even fatter, more depressed, and it took me nearly two years to get even HALF of that weight off? Remember? No? Not while your having a panic attack, huh? Hard to think straight when it feels like you're going to die at any second for no reason whatsoever, isn't it? How would I even understand such a thing unless I'd been living with it myself for the last TWENTY TWO YEARS, but hey, try the know it all high horse approach, see how far that gets you.

Resentment? Yah. I have it. It'll get worked through, given time.

Sex life? No, not so much. It'll get worked on, given... something, and time.

Yah, well, so it's Friday afternoon and my son left for his friends house and I'm home alone so it looks like I'd better do me quick because if I don't do it, who will? Thoughts like that do not usually lead to a feeling of wanton sex toy lust, I gotta say. The reality of it all is simple: my husband doesn't go anywhere or do anything, and with him AND my son in this little ole apartment, that doesn't leave much room to squeal like a happy little piglet. So, carpe diem, yo.

Seize SOMETHING, anyway.