Shoving it to RFK
notes on adaptability, SNRIs, and WW3
If you’re going through hell, keep going.
— Winston Churchill
Friends,
This week I had my first river sit of 2025. It felt indescribably good to feel the smoothed rocks under my tushy while the water moved around me. It’s been a million degrees in Massachusetts this week, and I am no longer the warm-weathered Texan who once declared, 105 degrees is my limit for working outside. Now I could never. I’m drenched in sweat by any temp over 80. It’s amazing how people adjust to the environments.
Humans, in general, are an adaptive and resilient species. Without even realizing, we make constant adjustments to our world around us so that we may survive it, if we want to. We all witnessed it just a few years back, when our collective world was rocked by a pandemic, and we figured out (even if it was messy, unsustainable, and full of problems) how to continue to educate our youth, and find community, and build lives full of dreams and love. We witness it from people in Palestine and Ukraine daily. I witnessed it on a smaller scale watching my family learn how to continue living and being a family after Rory died, which has also been messy and nonlinear. I’m witnessing in real time as we collectively still manage to scrape out moments of joy and connection against the backdrop of hate that our government is cultivating. We decide to survive and then we do.
I decided last week that I wanted to survive. It’s a decision I make all the time. Since I was a preteen I have struggled with suicidal ideation. I’ve adapted in various ways to the voice in my head that offers death as an option. I’ve listened to it once or twice. I’ve shoved it down. I’ve told my husband the voice is getting loud. I’ve exercised. I’ve done talk therapy. I’ve done mushrooms. I’ve listened to Elliott Smith on repeat. I’ve danced to playlists called things like Bad Bitches. I’ve wept and laughed and self-harmed and drank too much and made vision boards and wrote poems and fell in love and played music and made friends and hugged my family.
For the most part, as an adult, I haven’t turned to psychiatric medicine as a tool to keep surviving. I was prescribed a variety of SSRIs when I was a teenager and I both did not like how they made me feel and I resented needing help at all. Since then I’ve been cultivating this distrust of anti-depressants. It was an easy enough distrust to grow. I had help. There are cultural stigmas about mental illness. Big Pharma is a problem. It was easy to confirm my bias.
In a post 2020 world, I’ve been reaffirming my commitment to trusting science and data. I believe in the power of vaccinations and antibiotics. I believe in the power of surgical intervention. I definitely believe climate change is real. Why then don’t I believe that educated scientists understand more than I do about chemical imbalances in brains? Why was I so hesitant to receive that kind of help? Why was it so different than my inhalers which I have no shame about?
About a month ago, I realized I was depressed. And it wasn’t just a healthy dose of anxiety while watching democracy collapse or a healthy dose of anxiety because my nephew was killed by a drunk driver and the world for real is unfair and dangerous or a healthy dose of sadness because my fellow man seems so lost and hateful. Maybe it was all of these things. But none the less, when I realized the beast I know so well, I began my routine of battling it. I’ve been here before. I know the moves.
But honestly, it wasn’t working. So last week, I was spiraling my way to sleep at night, as one does, and the panicky, sick feeling all over was creeping in. I decided I didn’t want to do this any longer. It was time to try something new.
I want to survive. I want to do it for Rory. I want to do it for Clay and Devin and Maddie and Connor and Charlee and Emma and Bella and Jack and Cade and Mags and Schuyler and Eleanor and Hattie and Bridger and Delilah and Dock. I want to do it for my husband. I want to do it in spite of bad actors. I want to do it to spite bigots. RFK doesn’t want me to take antidepressants.
So I got myself some drugs, y’all. Cymbalta, to be specific. It’s an SNRI, which is a class of medicine I’ve never tried before. It’s supposed to help my brain keep higher levels of both serotonin and dopamine. It’s also sometimes prescribed for pain relief for osteoarthritis, which is a cool side effect that I certainly could benefit from.
It’s been six days. I took my first dose the same day we bombed Iran. It was a weird day. I’ve had a variety of side effects, which I expected. I doubted this would be a smooth ride. Full transparency, the first day or two felt like I was microdosing ecstasy. But today, much of that overhyped energy has subsided. And the voice in my head that isn’t so kind is quieter, too. Small results in about a week are common for Cymbalta, with full results in 6-8 weeks. It’s early still, but I have hope for this medicine being a real tool in my arsenal.
In the meantime, thanks for being patient with me with fewer posts lately. I’m trying to get back in poetry fighting shape, and I will. I’ll keep you all updated, as we go. I haven’t been a great reader lately, but I’m hoping not battling the depression / anxiety beast will leave more room in my brain for reading soon. Currently, I’m slowly working through I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, who was born in 1929 Belgium. And then I’m looking forward to Ocean Vuong’s newest novel. I also thought it might be timely to reread On The Beach in case of nuclear winter, which I discovered is a book that’s not the easiest to find at the moment.
What are y’all reading? How are you surviving this week? Have you been swimming lately? Have you read On The Beach? How are you shoving it to the fascists? What’s your favorite psych med?
Please consider liking, sharing, commenting, subscribing, etc and so on. Each of those is a pretty sweet dopamine hit, and I hear I’ll be holding on to those for longer soon.
I think the world of y’all.
I LOVE YOU,
EBG
I had my first river sit for this year this week. The Swift River in the White Mountains was deliciously cold. Pandora, my much heat afflicted pup, joined me, her little corgi legs splooted out under her.
I've done Cymbalta. The first couple of weeks were nuts for me (hyper realistic dreams, super nausea, felt like a zombie), but it leveled off to what felt normal for me, minus the worst of the depression and anxiety.
I'm on Escitalopram now. It's better sailing for me personally.
Good job taking care of yourself, sister.
I spent years (and years and years) resisting the idea that I might benefit from medication. And then I hit a rough (real rough) patch in 2017 and my husband said, "Please. Think about it." And I started a medication that, over time, has made a significant difference in my life, and the life of my loved ones. I doesn't work the same way for any two people, I get that, but for me, it was quite a bit deal. And here's the crazy thing: at one point a couple of years ago I felt SO much better that I thought, "Hey! I don't need the medication anymore!" (Logic problem? Yes. In hindsight!) Three months later, feeling bad again, I made the connection and went back on that medication. Guess what? I started to feel better again. And so it goes. Oh, and RFK? He and his panel of willfully misinformed idiots can Fuck. Right. Off.