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 Making changes - Anne
I am an overweight 40 year old, married for 17 years
and have a 15 year old son. My problems are many,
depression, I'm taking medication, zoloft for the last
12+months. I am also pondimin for my weight problem. I am
also feeling afraid that life is passing me by. I work
and make decent money, my husband earns a very good
salary and we live comfortably. I am feeling that the
only true relationships in my life are my family, father,
mother and brothers and I want to move closer to them.
This means my husband would have to quit his job and find
something else that does not pay as much. I am also
feeling very unsexual. This is driving him crazy, we have
not had sex for over six months. It is just that I can't
even feel sexual with anyone. I fear that I will lose my
husband, either divorce or to another woman. I know he
loves me very much, perhaps too much. We get along well,
talking and going places, yet when he wants to initiate
sex I can't and usually run away, emotionally and
sometimes physically. I don't want to feel this way. Why
do I? Am I trying to make to many changes at once? Do I
want to be free of my responsibilities to my family? I
can't seem to come to grips with any feelings I have. I
certainly do not understand them. Is there any others who
have had the same or similar experiences?
 From: Bernd
I want to reply to this as soon as I can, because I
can hear the hopelessness and despair you feel. Hang in
there. Can you tell me if you had to dealt with any forms
of sexual abuse as a child, including direct abuse or
growing up in a sexually dysfunctional home (a parent
having affairs, for eg.)? Also, as far as you can tell,
does anyone in the family or close relatives struggle
with any kinds of addictive behavior? Lastly, has there
been any significant changes in your life over the past
year that preceded your change in sexual interest? In
looking for answers, sometimes the clues we need lie in
places that don't jump out at us at first.
Hang in there. I have depression too, and it's no
picnic at the worst of times, let alone the best of
times.
From: Anne
yes to the addictive behaviour. I believe alcohol was
a big part of my problems in my 20's. I would drink and
not remember things. During college it led to me being
raped. this was done by someone who I knew but was not
interested in. One of my brothers is definitely an
addict. Mostly when he was young, lots of different drugs
and alcohol. My other brother is a pot head. My other
brother is a workaholic. As for abuse in my immediate
family, physically no. Emotionally, my mother was not
very close to me and my father worked a lot. Both are
very opinionated. Old school, lots of denial, especially
when we were children. For the last ten years or so I
have sworn off drinking, however in the last couple of
months I have started to drink again and smoke pot.
From: Bernd
My gut feeling is that one of the biggest sources of
your struggles is biochemically based, not
“emotional” as I suspect you’ve been
fearing. You have a real mixture of biological
interactions going on in your body - drugs (zoloft,
pondimin, alcohol, marijuana, and certain kinds of food),
and your inherited biological predisposition's to
depression and addiction. This is on top of what I
suspect is a combination of beating yourself up
emotionally over your weight and your seeming
“failures” in your marriage, the unhealed pain
from a difficult childhood, and the pain still unhealed
from your rape many years ago. Individually, each one of
these is “manageable” with enough willpower,
but together, they are like straws that together become a
weight so heavy, at some point you find yourself
emotionally and physically drained from exhaustion.
Now, what to do? First, accepting that part of your
emotional struggles are really biological, not
“mental” problems, can help you let go of some
of the guilt I know you feel. All the therapy in the
world won’t stop someone with a cold from sneezing.
Here’s how I see the biological factors:
- depression: there’s certainly plenty of
evidence that a predisposition to depression is
inherited. The depression itself may be triggered by
emotional stress, but it’s much like having a low
immune system. You and I have a lower tolerance for
dysfunction in and around us, and we start feeling ill
from it sooner than other people. Zoloft - if it’s
working for you - is akin to a diabetic taking insulin;
it helps restore the body’s ability to handle stress
to more normal levels.
- zoloft: one of the common side effects of many
antidepressants, such as zoloft, is a significant
reduction in sexual interest and libido. An extreme
comparison is someone taking chemotherapy and losing
their hair as a side effect. There are some drugs
available that can help reduce this unpleasant side
effect. Another option is exploring other antidepressants
(there are many) with your doctor, and seeing if you can
find one that’s as effective, without as much side
effects. I’d recommend, however, that you wait a bit
to do so until you have given your body a bit more of a
rest from the other chemicals it’s trying to handle
- which are:
- pondimin: there are 2 possible side effects with
this drug which may be exaberating your struggle with
depression - loss of energy, and depression/anxiety. Both
would add to your loss of sexual interest. I suspect as
well that it might be counteracting some of the help
zoloft is capable of giving you. I’m not a doctor,
but I’d suggest taking a serious look at where your
weight struggles and depression sit on your priority
scale. My sense is that, unless your weight problem is
seriously life threatening right now, treating the
depression is going to give you the greatest benefits. My
intuition also suggests to me that your struggle with
depression IS becoming much more life-threatening than it
appears on the surface. Your attempts to treat it with
alcohol and pot are evidence of that. The more
mind-altering moments you have in your life, the more
danger you are in of making a choice that can have very
unforeseen consequences, and the less able you are to
spot danger from others, and take preventive action. Your
rape, which happened during a period when alcohol became
a major part of your life, is probably a very painful
reminder of the latter. Treat depression as a serious
PHYSICAL disease, because it is - it’s simply that
it’s symptoms show themselves more emotionally. But
then, have you ever seen someone dancing with laughter
with a bad flu?:)
- alcohol and pot: no lecture here. It’s NORMAL
that the predisposition to addiction in your family tree
would make both of these drugs effective short-term
treatment for depression. Huh? Yes, it’s no accident
they are among the most common self-prescribed
“drugs” used by people dealing with depression.
They work. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t use
them. That simple. The downside is that their side
effects are horrible: loss of perception and reasoning,
increasing tolerance (which means we have to keep upping
our dosage to get the same relief), and a steady erosion
of physical health. They also have a significant
addictive side; when taken by someone with an addictive
biological makeup, they change from being pain relievers,
to pain bringers - and imprison the addict with horrific
withdrawal pain, if they try to stop using.
- food: some of the medical research into obesity has
shown clear evidence that overweight people, and people
addicted to certain foods, metabolize and store food
differently than those that don’t have weight
struggles. Some foods are metabolized in ways that
actually create natural narcotic-like chemicals in the
bloodstream, which gives them a “high” from
eating those foods, just like an alcoholic gets a
temporary “high” from drinking. Combined with
different metabolism rates and fat cell distribution and
numbers, food becomes a minefield for such people. These
are all PHYSICAL factors, and yet the overriding stigma
still is that overweight people are that way because of
lack of willpower/self-discipline, or emotional problems.
When food gives a biological “high”, it also
tends to work like any other mood-altering drug: the lows
follow after it wears off, sometimes in a steep downward
swing.
Now, you probably already know all, or much of what
I’ve just mentioned. So here’s the picture as I
see it. Before you can have any real success in dealing
with your emotional turmoil, the physical side of your
struggles has to be addressed as much as possible first.
All the insight you get from others will help very
little, if your mind and body are feeling terrible
because of the battle of chemicals going on inside.
Moving won’t change that.
I’d STRONGLY recommend getting in contact with
both Overeaters Anonymous, and AA. Food and alcohol have
been your main drugs of choice, and no matter how long
you seem to abstain from them, their hold over your life
remains as solid as ever. Take a serious look at how
important the pondimin is to your physical health right
now (if you are hoping weight loss will ease your
depression, my guess is that it won’t be any more
effective than trying to treat diabetes with penicillin).
If you consider depression to be your biggest struggle,
talk to your doctor about the pros and cons of delaying
pondimin until you have more solid recovery from
depression. First things first.
Depression support groups aren’t available in my
area, but you may find some resources in yours. If so,
take advantage of them. Depression is IMPOSSIBLE to
manage alone; Lord knows I’ve tried. You CAN heal
from many of its effects though - such as the shame,
guilt, and self-kicking - and that healing will go a long
way in making your depression something you can live with
quite comfortably at some point in the future.
Now, a few other things. If you decide to reach out
and get some help, you may find that the depression has
helped mask some deep rage that’s still bottled up
from your childhood and rape. Don’t be afraid of
this. It will come when it’s time, and you will be
ready for it when it does. Your soul has a very wise way
of pushing you as far as you’re capable, but never
over your limit. Don’t dread it, don’t wait for
it. First things first; focus on your most immediate
priorities, and let the future happen the way it needs
to. You’ll find in hindsight that each step of the
way was exactly what you needed, when you needed it, and
when you look back on your recovery path, you won’t
want to change a thing. That’s how it works. We just
don’t have the benefit of a crystal ball to see that
beforehand.
Your sexual struggles SEEM to be the “main”
problem - or one of them right now - but maybe a more
helpful perspective is to look at it as a natural
side-effect of the zoloft, and the tip of the iceberg. It
makes a lot of sense to me that the thought of sex would
set off panic in you, because you’d have to force
your body to do something it doesn’t feel up to, and
you’d have to be dishonest to yourself about how you
really felt. I’ve hit periods where my sexual
appetite just went and flew right out the window. What I
find really helps is focusing on touching, and playing
with Lynda, and gently but firmly asserting my right to
own my own body and feelings. I don’t have to be
sexually aroused to touch her sexually, or to hold her.
If she wants something I don’t feel comfortable
giving, I’m more comfortable now saying
“no” - gently but firmly. It wasn’t easy
getting to this stage - lots of talking, being scared,
and hurt feelings on both our parts, but each time we
hang with a “problem” when it comes up, and
take the time to really talk and TRY and understand each
other’s feelings, we find we discover some new ways
of looking at things, and the relationship gets easier
and we both feel safer and more secure. I HAVE to risk
saying how I feel, and really listening to her too.
I’ve found that “no risk” is actually
“high risk”. When I don’t risk sharing how
I really feel about something, Lynda never gets a chance
to understand - and I never get a chance to really
understand HER feelings in return.
If your husband will give you “permission”
to tell him exactly how you feel, when those panicky
sexual feelings come up, and support your right to say
“no” when you need to, it might help you feel a
lot safer being close to him. See if you can begin
exploring other kinds of sexual intimacy, such as
stroking his body or face while he pleasures himself, or
having “verbal” sex with him (where you take
him in a spoken fantasy, and do your ravishing with
words). Give yourself permission to experiment, and
finding out how powerful the sense of simple TOUCH is to
you, and him. I find the ends of my fingers to be one of
the most sensual areas of my body; the pleasurable
feelings I get from them transcend the word
“sexual”. They just feel incredibly wonderful,
and pure, and safe. Annie, from my own experience, there
is no way around risking true recovery - not if we want
to find a way out of the “hell” our life seems
to be heading closer to. We either heal, and begin living
again, or we keep dying - one day at a time. Your and my
depression is both a curse and a gift. It’s our
body’s way of telling us very urgently that we have
been dying a slow death all our lives. Pain becomes our
only hope of crying out in despair and turning toward the
path of healing we’ve been terrified to embark on
for so long. But that path is our only salvation. And as
difficult as it seems, it’s only because we’re
crawling OUT of the swamp others led us into that the way
seems so difficult. But a funny thing happens as we go
down that path. Our souls and hearts begin to grow wings.
The further along we get, the lighter our feet become,
and one day we look back in wonder, and see how much our
life has changed. And we look forward in even more
wonder, because we keep discovering a magic in our souls
we thought had long been lost.
You have that waiting for you too. The medical
profession is still in its infancy in how it deals with
depression, and food and alcohol addictions. The real
specialists are out there, but not in the hospitals.
You’ll find them in 12 step meetings, or in support
centers. They’re the ones that have walked the walk,
and have hope back in their hearts. You are doing THEM a
favour when you see them. Because one of the neat things
about recovery, is that you can only keep it when you
keep giving it away. Do them a favour girl.:)
Hope something here helps a little.
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