Rutgers, Kean University, Antidepressants and Withdrawal
I went to Rutgers University for a year. The campus was
extremely large and I had to do quite a bit of walking. I had to pace myself. I
took the bus to get to classes off campus. To get to the dining hall, I needed
to walk a bit of a distance and so I rarely went. The majority of my classes
were on the campus I dormed in and I had to walk to them too. I made
sure to give myself enough time to slowly walk to class without being late. The enormity of the university was overwhelming. Depression
had really taken hold despite the antidepressants. I did enjoy being on my own
though. I put a request in for a single room due to medical reasons as I did
not want to do my Vest in front of anyone. Coughing and spitting mucus into a
cup isn’t a pleasant thing to witness. Besides that, I always had terrible
insomnia that was only exacerbated by steroids. However, it did come in handy
for pulling all-nighters
when writing papers. When I would get sick, I would have a therapist come to my
dorm and do my CPT for me. She would bring along a percussor which was really a
modified jigsaw with a cupping mechanism attached to the end that a patient had
made her. It really worked wonders in loosening mucus. When I wasn't on IV's, I had my very large Vest machine that was part of my furniture in my dorm room.
(In my single dorm room at Rutgers with a sock for an IV cover, having a family visit.)
Soon after starting the first semester of my second year, I became ill with a mysterious illness. I was constantly nauseous and had what felt like electrical brain zaps. I couldn’t figure out what was causing it and it wasn’t going away. My parents and I decided I should come home and try to get into a local university. On September 11, 2001, I left my dorm and headed home. My father was going to take me to meet someone at Kean University to see if I could possibly transfer there instead of staying at Rutgers. Of course this would be no ordinary day. As I drove home, I was listening to the radio and heard, the reports of the first airplane hitting into the twin towers. We did end up going to Kean University that day. We got to briefly talk to someone, before the university would be shut down for the rest of the day. I was able to transfer to Kean and get into the necessary classes. I did have to obtain some overrides as some classes were full. I had only missed a few days and I was able to catch up. The campus was much smaller and much better suited to my needs. I enjoyed the smaller class sizes too and began to make new friends. Soon after, I figured out the cause of my symptoms. I traced it back to the day I stopped taking my antidepressant. I had not known that stopping cold turkey would cause intense withdrawal symptoms. I was also prescribed this antidepressant by my CF doctor and so I did not have all the information a psychiatrist might have supplied. I promptly restarted the drug and immediately felt better. Throughout the next several years, I would try almost a dozen other antidepressants. Some were harder to wean off of than others due to the strong withdrawal side effects. I had mild success with antidepressants. Again, I never really realized they were causing bipolar tendencies and that they were not an ideal treatment for me.
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