Hello Fluoxetine, My Name is Margaret - Can we be friends?

Last night after my usual bedtime routine I sat down on my side of the bed. Glass of water on my night table and the box of 30 capsules. Slowly I took one of the pills out of the packet and even though it took me a few minutes of staring at the red and yellow capsule and thinking to myself 'is this really what I want to do?' I did it. I just did it, I had to do it. My OCD is relentless and it has given me no other choice. I am not longer going to look at the medication as a 'happy pill'

With nothing but my thankfulness to another blogger for her kind words, her view of the medication and I quote off of the comments page
''I will tell you one thing though... in my experience my meds are not happy pills. They are "help me move the thoughts along pills." I still feel depressed, sad, happy, silly-- everything I used to feel. The only difference is that instead of an OCD episode knocking me out for a few weeks, I only suffer for a few days and I can handle and identify the symptoms better to help myself more during those few days''

I don't think anyone has said anything as frank as this about the pills. It gave me a different way to look at them and without it I don't know how much longer it would have taken me to get there. I don't care what my past therapists think when it comes to their disapproval of OCD sufferers speaking to each other, without those other sufferers I would be in a much worse place then I already am. No one knows your OCD like another sufferer.

So here I am, glass held up with another pill to take tonight ''here is to good mental health and a way forward'' It is all gradual steps and this is one step that was gradually taken but better late then never. I am in no hurry to get back into treatment. I want to try this approach with the medication first and to at least find a way to help myself before I ask others to help me. Treatment is hard. I wouldn't put anyone off of going for treatment but I think that I just wasn't strong enough to cope with the demands but when I am strong enough to cope with the demands of treatment then I can see it being successful. Until then, I have a book called 'Brain Lock' by Jeffrey M. Schwartz that may be helpful. It is also a second hand copy and that alone is something that I have trouble handling and breathing once I open the pages are not only difficulty from a panic attack but I become too frightened to breathe in case I breathe in the germs off of the pages. I have not been to a library in over 2 years. 2 years of books that I could have borrowed wasted. I would have had to move on to another library to get my fix.