Chapter 68 My Body Speaks - from my book Changes

Chapter 68

My Body Speaks

You may have heard of the book “The Body Doesn’t Lie”.  Well, for a while, my body had been telling me something pretty obvious to understand.

It started with my hand.  My hand would hurt when I touched my husband.  Over time, the pain gradually travelled up my arm until my whole arm would hurt when I touched him.  Eventually the whole right side of my body hurt.  Then, one year when my sister and I were driving back to Florida to take me home from Oregon, we stopped at the home of one of my daughters, and I noticed my whole body was hurting.  The feeling was that of being constantly shocked, on a low level, all over the skin of my body.

I mentioned that to my daughter and realized that as I got closer to home and my husband, my body was hurting more and more.

My daughter suggested I try a little bit of the medicine she was taking for anxiety and depression.  The medicine was called Zoloft.  I tried it, just a little bit, like 20 mg, and within minutes, the effect was like a warm comfortable blanket had gently covered my body and the pain was gone.

I learned that Zoloft is a selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor, also known as SSRI.  The action of the medicine is to slow down the recycling of serotonin in the body.  Serotonin is released after the nerve reacts to danger in order to calm the nerve back down.  In my case, and that of many others, the serotonin does not get the job done before it is recycled by the body, therefore the body remains in panic mode.  The medicine allows the serotonin to finish doing it’s job — telling the nerves to stop alarming the body, because the danger is not actually present.  Anxiety and panic is a mind body reaction to fear.

It was during that visit at my daughter’s house that I decided I had to leave Florida to get some distance from my husband.

First step was to get a prescription for Zoloft, which in generic form is Sertraline.  That helped me cope physically with the choices I was making.

Now, the doctor didn’t believe that that little bit of Zoloft could work that quickly for me, but it did.  I did not have to wait a couple weeks for the Zoloft to start working.  I think I was so badly in need of that medicine, my body sucked it right up and spread it out.

The next step in my plan was to start getting organized and packed.  I didn’t know when I would leave.  I didn’t tell my husband about my plan because, well, you know, I was afraid of his reaction.  I had to be strategic.  Here’s where the quiet, careful, calculating part of me shows up.

I packed the most basic essential things I wanted to take with me: my photos, my art supplies, my journals, some of my clothes; Things that wouldn’t show as missing in the household as I prepared to go; Things I couldn’t replace, or wanted for my future.  I put the boxes up in the loft where typically no one went.  The stack of boxes grew as time went by.  My lists became more detailed and complete.  By December, I was basically ready to go.  My depression was lifting because I had a plan and I was taking action, even if in baby steps.