Dammitall

I was originally going to post this as a journal entry but figured it would be a better idea to get input from people who are more knowledgeable and/or more experienced with this than I am.

I'm probably depressed and probably suffering from an anxiety disorder. I've been in therapy a couple of times, once in high school (my parents sent me after my best friend/now ex-girlfriend had attempted suicide in high school), then again a couple of years ago with a therapist that I worked with off and on until a year ago, when I started my current job and lost the time flexibility I had had to make my weekly appointments.

I have had issues with honesty persistently since childhood. I lie—or withhold information—about stupid shit to the people I care about the most, usually to cover up something I'm about to do or have done, whether it's something I want or feel entitled to doing/having or something embarrassing that I want to cover up. Over time this has taken a serious toll on my current relationship, and my partner is getting sick of it after nine years of the same shit over and over. We'll be coasting along and my lying behavior will escalate gradually until it boils over into a big fight, she tells me she can't deal with it anymore, says I really need help with this and thinks, strongly, that I should get medication to help suppress this behavior with more success than I seem to have trying on my own.

I also have issues with rage, being overcome by it in moments of frustration and anxiety, slamming my fists around, spitting obscenities. It hasn't driven me to destroy property yet, or injure myself or anyone else, but it does freak the hell out of people I know who witness it. It freaks me out, too.

All of this, and it's likely solution, makes sense in theory—in my head. When I look at it practically, I know I need help in this situation and most likely that help will come in the form of medication; therapy has worked for me to an extent, but it's probable that I'm chemically imbalanced and need something stronger. There is no stigma. It is what it is.

In my heart—my gut—I feel tremendous anxiety over the thought of being on medication. I feel flawed, like a failure, that I'm somehow weak for needing something outside my own willpower to "fix" myself, ... I feel like I'd become a cliché, another stereotypical overmedicated yuppie, that the drugs would numb me, make me an emotional vegetable or somehow detached from who I really am, that I'd become boring, that I'd suffer the worst of any physical side effects from any drug they'd try me on, etc.

I'm scared by the fact that I have always been horrible about taking medication consistently over a long period of time. Following surgery in my infancy I was prescribed low-dose antibiotics that I was supposed to take every day for the rest of my life. I slacked off on taking them gradually until I just stopped altogether (I lied about that for a while to my parents). In the past few years I've needed birth control pills to regulate my hormonal cycles and have slacked off with taking those, too. How the hell am I going to handle taking antidepressants that <b>must</b> be taken in full, religiously, consistently, on the basis that I will never be "cured" and will be dependent on them to feel normal for the foreseeable future?

Yes, I have issues. Yes, I am dramatic. I'm sure these feelings—some of them, at least—are not uncommon, but how the hell do I get over them, suck it up, and fix myself (with help) before my relationship is ruined?

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If one million people replaced a two mile car trip once a week with a bike ride, carbon dioxide emissions would be reduced by 50,000 tons per year. If one out of ten car commuters switched to a bike, carbon dioxide emissions would be reduced by 25.4 million tons per year. [2milechallenge.com]