Jasmine Retells the Tale

Now, many of you have been following my struggles over the last year and a half through my mom, but I figure it might be time to share a bit from the source. Whether this provides insight to you, or you want to show it to your kids who might be struggling, or your kids who are doing great so they can feel super accomplished, hopefully it will be cathartic to write it all down.

Going back to the root source, after finishing university I immediately jumped into working full time for a “production company”. That part is in quotes because it was a shoddy operation run by one guy who had no idea what he was doing, but it was in the industry and it paid well. I was working remotely from either my basement or the local library. About a week in I started struggling emotionally, crying before and after working. Slowly, this emotional turmoil started overtaking more of my time— I needed to take breaks during work hours, I was waking up in the middle of the night, and my appetite dropped severely. As it continued to get worse I knew that this was not going to resolve on its own, there was no clear trigger and no clear solution. I reduced my work hours, booked therapy, told my parents I was struggling, and made a doctor's appointment to get medication. I was initially prescribed an SSRI, escitalopram (Lexapro) and lorazepam (Ativan), an addictive sleep aid that can only be prescribed for up to a few weeks.

The SSRI was going to take 2-4 weeks to actually start working, and the first day I took it I threw up. So, the cavalry was called in, mom to the rescue. She came down to stay with us and take care of me for two weeks, during which time I was mostly crying, watching Task Master, colouring, eating a few blueberries, and going on walks to try and feel better.

And so far I have not mentioned the Jonathan of it all, my wonderful fiancé who was so supportive during this whole ordeal. Work was about to get busy with the Nintendo Switch 2 release and he wasn’t going to have the time or energy to be taking care of and worrying about me. In the end, we decided I would go home to Ottawa for a bit where my family could continue to care for me.

Once back in Ottawa I weaned off the sleep medication and the SSRI finally started to kick in. A huge thank you to my family for everything, and also to Spencer who was kind enough to share his own mental health struggles and reassure me that it would get better.

And so I returned to Toronto, continuing to improve and gain my independence. At this point I was still working a few hours every day if I could, but I knew that if I was going to finish the healing process I would need to take a full break with no pressure. I submitted my leave to work, offering to help with the transition and suggesting a peer of mine from school as a replacement, after which my boss told all our co-workers and collaborators that I had quit with no notice, but that’s a story for another time.

In August, we moved out of the basement apartment into our current place. It had sunlight, in unit laundry, temperature control and so much more. Then we got our cat at the start of September. Was I completely better? No. But I felt good enough to start looking for a new job and landed as an Executive Assistant for a sports company that ran youth and adult sports programming as well as facility rentals in Toronto and Florida (weird combo, I know).

I definitely was struggling at the start of this job, having been used to doing next to nothing with my day for the last few months, but I was determined to succeed…. Until the depression started.

Now believe it or not, the crying from before was actually anxiety induced, now it was induced by Big Sad. It was infuriating to feel that I had arrested some control over myself and now it was slipping again in a new way. I was crying again, exhausted constantly. I was crying in the bathroom or in my car during working hours, needing to take frequent breaks, struggling with being in the office for my required hours, and struggling with critical thinking and problem solving skills (which I normally pride myself on). The fog I was in was suffocating and heavy.

We increased my medication dosage but it didn’t do much. I started another sleeping pill that was also supposed to help increase my appetite but made me drowsy during the day. Let me tell you, it is maddening for people to tell you you just need to exercise harder to tire yourself out to get better sleep when you’re struggling to put on your shoes or shower. 

Probably around December was when the suicidal ideation started. It sounds scary, and in some ways it was, but I had what was called passive suicidal ideation, meaning I had no active plan in place to kill myself. But it was exhausting constantly battling my mind, fighting off the urge to sleep, cry, and give up all of the time. I had looked into employment insurance to take more time off, but I didn’t meet the requirement for number of hours worked since I was working as a freelancer for the production company.

It came to a head when the passive ideation switched vaguely to active and my therapist had me make another doctor's appointment for the following day. Y’know sometimes you think you’re doing fine, and then your therapist who works with literal child cancer patients tells you you’re the patient she’s most concerned about and it puts it into perspective. I was, in fact, not okay.

To the doctor I went and we decided a test for my Vitamin D levels was called for. Well, as it turns out, I was sooo deficient in Vitamin D. The normal range is 75-200, and I was coming in at 45. So a medical grade dose was prescribed and within a week I was feeling a million times better. The will to live slowly returned to my body, work didn’t seem so impossible anymore, I stopped the sleeping medication which made me less drowsy, and I actually started taking some initiative in my job… just in time for me to be laid off.

Life just keeps going my way, huh? My boss had decided to relocate the role to Florida, where he did reside and spend the majority of his time. While I do wonder if I had been working at full capacity if maybe I would have proved valuable enough to keep around, there was no specific feedback pointing to that in my exit interviews.

It is important to mention that I had just caught back up financially. Because I hadn’t worked for so many months, I had gone into debt to Jonathan who was covering my portion of the rent. And now I was jobless again with no savings. I took another little bit of a break before yet again applying for jobs, this time landing as a Supervisor at Toronto Pearson Airport for Hertz, the rental car company.

I continued to struggle with full time work, taking frequent breaks and crying, but at this point my baseline was so low that comparatively this really wasn’t bad. My good day was

someone’s worst day at work.

After about a month I started having more anxiety again, with new and old symptoms popping up. One fun one that I have is anxiety induced gagging— I’m not nauseous, I just gag. My hands and legs were also going tingly and numb, this made it more difficult to stand and walk, which was tough at a job that was mostly standing and walking. Back to the doctor I went!

Because I was already at the maximum dose on escitalopram, we switched medications to an SNRI called Venlafaxine. Within weeks I was feeling better. The urge to cry no longer plagued me, I started feeling more social and energetic.

Months later I am in the best place I have been in over a year and a half. I’ve held this job for five months now, and sometimes I even think I’m pretty good at it. I rock climb once or twice a week, see friends regularly, take some fun online classes through the library, signed up for a soccer league, and generally am doing much better. I sometimes still struggle with fatigue, and any time I feel anxious or sad I fear I am backsliding, even if there is good reason for those feelings. I struggle with guilt for all those I had to lean on, my parents and Jonathan especially, because I know it was hard for them to see me like that, but I am so grateful for the support system that I had and have.

Thank you to everyone who offered well wishes, support, or shared their stories while I struggled. The journey is far from over I’m sure, but I’m continuing to move forward with my incredible family, friends, and fiancé who will be my husband in less than a year from now!