lizzhickey |

hi world of cartoons and jokes,

i’m here to talk some not so jokes

obviously the internet is such a huge part of everyone’s lives and i use google on a day-to-day basis to get advice from OTHER LIVING PEOPLE about so many things. which is why i am going to talk about my experience with a new medication i’ve been taking. i have seriously relied SO MUCH on the internet for information about this drug.

i just started taking something called PAXIL. if you “google it”, you’ll find a lot wrong with it. i’ve even seen tv commercials with lawyers who advocate against it for reasons that i don’t relate to. (birth defects, etc)

the main reason why i am talking about this here is because of how it affects me and my comic-making.

i take PAXIL now because i have had severe social anxiety amongst other things. i never really realized i had it until recently. Dealing with obsessive compulsive thoughts racing through my head constantly, leading to points and other corners and ideas and fears and nightmares. i knew everything was connected somehow, but it was overwhelming. however, it did make my comics really interesting to me, since i looked at my life in so many dimensions. i could find the worst in anything. even a mother pushing her full-size stroller onto the J-train pissed me off and threw me into a silent rage. what was wrong with me? i thought this was normal. maybe my angst was just ME. my cynicism and maliciousness was lizz hickey. even the way that i would leave parties early because i couldn’t bare the thought of having a conversation. it’s not that i DIDNT like people, i just couldn’t like people. or anything. even the thoughts of my future with my hurt neck really freaked me out and had me crying in my bedroom for a countless amount of time. my anxiety kept me hidden from being me.

who knew–the stress was so strong that even my face broke out in blistered rashes.

warning signs kept popping up. i have never thought about ever taking any daily drugs like this. i proved myself wrong. it’s strange, even the first day of taking paxil i’ve felt better. i don’t hide in the corner, i actually have conversations. sometimes i ramble on because that’s just what comes along with the pill, but i feel more like a human being. i’m afraid because even though my mental health seems to be better, i can’t seem to have ANY thoughts. obviously i can write a blogpost, or talk to people, but my thoughts when it comes to my art are blank. it’s so unreal! i no longer feel like i need to shit talk anything, or pull the worst out of a situation. i feel…..fine. the drug flushes my brain with good feelings. even when i FORCE myself to think about some horrible scenario, it immediately disappears. i force myself to think about a family member dying, or the apocalypse, or some other random horrible thing, and i sit there and smile and the thought is gone and forgotten.

thankfully i haven’t had any real side effects except for the obvious loss of cynicism, and i hope that returns soon. i once looked to my obsessive, rude personality to make art. i assume things will balance out. i guess i’ve just never seen how my reality has changed. i used to feel so hopeless and hide it. now i feel good, even though i do recognize the worst that could come from SSRIs. i want to stay focused with my art and my new life. i hope that my new-found positivity and chemical balance will lead me.

i just never thought life was so hard inside my brain

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