Maybe I should rename the blog....

Something like "Surviving-We-Three-Thanks-To-Drugs.com

Really. Of all the things in this world there is to talk about (and those who know me well, know I like to talk a LOT), I want to talk about drugs again. Actually, I just want to talk about one. Citalopram.

I feel normal again on this drug. Yeah, yeah. none of us are normal. but I feel normal for me. When I was on the Zoloft, I was highly numbed. And I've always been a little empath, soaking up feelings from all around me. That's why the Zoloft was so good for me this time last year.

The Citalopram lets me feel again. The whole range of emotions that I know I'm capable of! I got ticked off at a friend last week and told him so. Got into a very personal debate with another friend and he got me worked up enough to stand up for myself on the issue at hand. And then the latest Austin tragedy happened.

The little 7 year old boy at NYOS passed away from his injuries. I didn't know him. or his family. but he has a mom that lost a little boy. A little boy that is very close to the age of my oldest daughter.

15 years ago, I worked at a company called FFE. Where I met one of my dearest friends (who sometimes reads this blog). We worked with a lady whose mother had been in the hospital on dialysis. You know those certain moments in life that you will just never ever EVER E-V-E-R forget? She sat in the cube next to mine. I heard her phone ring. Heard her answer. and then the world stood still. She let out the most pained, sad, blood curtling "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo" I've ever heard. Her mother had passed away. We were all in her cube within seconds. She collapsed in our arms, but I'm sure she didn't even know we were there. She had just had her heart pulled out of her, a piece cut out of it and then shoved back in her for her to learn how to make it beat again without the guidance of her living mother.

I can see, hear, even smell and taste that day with full clarity. i remember crying for weeks from the pain of this co-worker. It would hit me at odd times. still does on occasion, but I relate another event with that feeling now.

Four years ago, on Good Friday, I got a call similar to that. But I wasn't expecting it. My father had passed away. My father whom I had been estranged from for the last 13 years that I had been talking about THAT very morning about how I was ready to try again to mend the fence. I heard that blood curtling "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo" but this time it was MY voice. and it was MY heart that was ripped out, stripped of my living father and shoved back in me where I had to deal with all the baggage of never making up with my Dad.

There are those moments that you just don't forget. With these moments, all the emotions flood back at once.

When I went on the Zoloft, I couldn't even bring back that emotion. i was that numbed. Great for a while, but around June/July I was ready to feel again. By the time my doctor was ready to wean me off, the holidays were hitting, so we postponed until the beginning of the year. Then I figured out the stage fright thing (see Asthma post), so we switched to Citalopram.

I'm 100 percent sure that Citalopram lets me have the full range of my feelings.

Yes, I'm sad for the little boy's family.

But what I feel is for my friend who has a little girl at that school. When she was pregnant with her now 6-year old, her (I think 5-year old) daughter drowned in a backyard pool. When that dawned on me that she's having to deal with the loss of a classmate of her daughter's PLUS having to relive all those feelings of losing a child. There are no words. All I can do is sit here and type aimlessly with tears streaking down my face.

and pray for peace. For my friend and her daughter. for the school. for the family who has to figure out how to live without seeing their little boy grow up.

There are just no words.

Dear friend described above - you know who you are. I think about you and your family every day. I pray for strength for your family as you have to deal with all the feelings that had to have risen above the surface again. I cry for you. You are well-loved.

Virtual hugs. Real tears.