Of Meds and Marriage
By Simi Lichtman September 15, 2013
I spent years learning how to be happy and healthy — to take care of myself, pay attention to my own needs, see a therapist and take anti-anxiety meds — before I met Jeremy. By the time we got married, I was two years out of my eating disorder with no relapses. It seemed I had finally figured out how to live a balanced, healthy life, and I was able to enter our marriage with relative confidence that life would continue in that positive direction. So when I ran out of refills on my anti-anxiety prescription and no longer had access to my college’s free psychiatry service, I figured I would be fine. It had been such a low dose, anyway, the lowest possible, and I was much better at handling difficult situations. Plus, I was in a happy marriage and loved my job. I had nothing to be stressed or anxious about, so I pronounced myself graduated from medication.
I was terminating therapy after three years — my therapist and I both agreed I was ready — and didn’t want to mess that up, so I didn’t tell my psychologist that I had stopped taking my meds as well. I didn’t want to be questioned for my choice, so I didn’t tell anyone else either. Including Jeremy.
I had no problem taking medications. I had mostly gotten over the stigma associated with psychiatric pills, but was relieved that I wouldn’t have to be on them for life. And it was fine, for a few weeks at least.
I had pretty much forgotten that anything was different when Jeremy and I both noticed our fighting was changing. I was becoming much more sensitive to everything, and took every innocent statement as an attack. I read into things and ended fights in tears because I was so upset — both about whatever we were fighting about, and because I knew that I was responding incredibly disproportionately to the scale of the disagreement. One particularly bad Sunday, I realized what I’d started to suspect must be true: I needed my meds back. I told Jeremy that I’d stopped taking them and, with his full support and not one recrimination for keeping it from him, found myself a new psychiatrist. I’ve been taking my pill every day since.
I learned a few lessons from that rather emotional period. One, of course, was to actually heed medical advice to never stop taking meds without a doctor’s approval. The more important lesson, though, was that if I wasn’t healthy, my marriage couldn’t possibly be healthy. Had I not attended to myself, had I not sought a new psychiatrist and paid attention to my mental state, the situation could have easily gotten much worse. As it was, it wasn’t a very fun month in our marriage.
Though I didn’t get married to become happy, there was a time in my life that I might have. What I know now is that a relationship can’t make anyone happy; it takes two healthy people to form a healthy union.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
