So it has taken a good 6 months for 2 of my best doctors to actually put their foot in my others doctors ass to get my treatment straightened out. I started testosterone injections a week ago (2/11/2021) and will be taking them every other week. I have a follow up with my endocrinologist in 3 months to see if we need to increase dosage and see how I'm responding to treatment.
During all this bullshit with my primary care not doing his job properly, It took me in his office practically pleading and damn near in tears about how absolutely terrible I was feeling physically before he actually pulled his head out of his ass and attempted to do something.. He chose to put me on Lexapro 5mg because "I've had other patients with low testosterone and this has helped even it out and bring it up a little bit for them until they could see an endo!" so I walked out of his office begrudgingly and went to Winn Dixie and had it filled, I took it for awhile and honestly didn't notice a hell of a lot of difference. It took the edge off my physical pain but that was it, It pretty much made it where even though most days were hell physically, I could at least make it through the day with a slightly lower chance of collapsing of exhaustion and/or pain.
I have a severe stigma against Medicine, Particularly "Mood Stabilizers", AntiDepressants, Whatever you choose to call them. I have nothing against them in a sense that hey if they work and they make somebody feel better, I'm all for it, Live your best life, I'm glad they work for you. My dad all of my childhood up until I went to EMT school at 19 has tried to push mood stabilizers and I have always declined.. He's pulled some sneaky shit and made me take them without me realizing what they were a few times.. While I was attending EMT school or rather getting ready to start EMT school and pulling all my immunization records my mom was out of town and found a way to be "present" during a consultation with a doctor I was seeing (Whom was his doctor, which I didn't wanna fucking do anyway.) and he opened his fucking cum catch when the doctor asked "Is there anything else bothering you?" and I told the doctor "no.". My dad spoke up with this shit eating grin on his face and proceeds to ask if he can interrupt, I humor him cause I know what he's about to pull and I'm going to put the fear of god in the doctor if he so much as looks my way or thinks about agreeing with my dad. As I planned my dad started spewing a bunch of bullshit to the doctor about me not being happy, i'm depressed, I'm antisocial and don't have a good personality, yada yada yada a bunch of other bullshit to go along with. I'm watching the doctor look at me nervously as he can see I'm starting to boil over in my seat and getting ready to whip somebodys ass, When he abruptly cuts my dad off and tells him this isn't a conversation we should all be having. My dad goes on his typical bullshit for the next several months and even years up until recently about how I should think about mood stabilizers, they're amazing, I'd be a completely different person on them, blah blah blah blah. My dad takes mood stabilizers and is a different person on them vs off of them, Just to give note.
Anyway... Let's bring us up to the last 6 months. I have been through the ringer medically the last 6 months. I've seen my primary, I've been seeing a hematologist for my high white blood count and high platelets count, I have my regular 90 day follow ups with my Neurologist to treat headaches which I've been getting pretty consistently nonstop over the last few months, I've been to a Neurosurgeon to decide if any of what I'm experiencing could be due to a failing shunt. I go through the motions, get poked and prodded, an MRI, CT, the works... They don't believe my shunt is functioning much as it's been in my body for 24 years and hasn't been operated on or messed with in about 15 years. They don't believe the shunt works but believe that due to some enlargement of the ventricles in my brain (Which i've had on and off since they removed the tumor) that my ventricles have started functioning properly and are now doing 98% of the work, compared to maybe working sporadically when I was younger with my condition (which is where the shunt comes into play).
Let's fast forward to present present day. I made a comment about 2 weeks ago to my mom about how I was going to quit the Lexapro and she freaked out on me. She told me I can't quit it, blah blah blah, it's not good to just quit, a doctors gotta wean me off of it, so on and so forth. However back when my incompetent cockmonger of a doctor put me on this horse shit drug I specifically asked my doctor and my mother "is this a high enough dose to where, god forbid I don't like it or want to take it, I can quit it cold turkey without major side effects?" To which my primary replied "Yes, but I don't recommend you do that in my professional opinion" and my mom whom replied "If you don't like it or it doesn't work, it's a low enough dose where you can quit it and only have to deal with very minimal withdrawal symptoms." I've felt so shitty the last several months that I honestly don't know what may or may not have been withdraw or just my body in it's current fucked up state just letting me know it's still fucked up. Getting to the point.. My mom came in to say goodnight a little bit ago and hit me with the "Don't get mad, but I want to ask you something" to which my mind automatically goes "Ohh shit, here we go, what the hell could it possibly be now?" She asked me if I stopped taking the Lexapro. I told her yes. She asked me why... I told her because I didn't like taking it and I personally have a stigma against it because my dad and several piece of shit doctors used to try to shove it down my throat all those years when I was young. She got upset and asked me why I quit taking it, to which I told her, I don't have a reason that's goin to satisfy me you other than I'm a grown man, I didn't like taking them because someone was always trying to figuratively force them down my throat most of my younger childhood and that I had no desire to take them long term or try another drug. She proceeds to get pissed off and upset and again asks me "But why!?" to which I go through the whole song and dance. It starts looking like I finally satiated her with my answer and she was going to drop it and then she started on "it's not good for you to always be so worked up and pissed off, it's bad for your health, you're only hurting yourself because you wanna spite your dad and the doctors who have done you wrong" to which I more or less replied "Bingo. I made the decision because I'm an adult and it was MY decision to make. I don't wanna take the meds, I don't have a good reason or what she would consider a good reason why, and my best reason was that I was a grown man, I made the decision, I'm fine living with the side effects until I detox completely and I'm honestly quite perfectly fine being the pessimistic realist I am that sees the world for what it is... I didn't say this next part to her, You're entitled to believe what you believe, and I respect that, As long as you entitle me to have my own belief, and it's my belief that heaven and hell or the equivalent of what you do/don't believe in (I don't personally believe in anything) Doesn't actually exist. Life is nothing but hell and pain. Death is nothing but peace and serenity. Nothing we do in our life really fucking matters. To quote a lyric from a song from FFDP "At the end of the day, We're all just fucking chalk lines on the concrete, drawn only to be washed away and forgotten, I am what I am".
My mom can see my moods better than I can and I'll be honest I've felt myself detoxing from the Lexapro and have been a little bit more like my old self (straight up pessimistic asshole). It upsets my mom and I understand that, I really do.. But she's acting like I was this fantastic happy go lucky joyful person the short time I was on them, and I will admit some days I felt great, other days I felt like hell, I didn't notice a huge improvement while I was on them other than they took the edge off my physical pain which in turn took an edge off my otherwise rough and pissed off exterior. It's not like it was this "Fix all" drug like my primary tried to convince me it was, Which I knew from the get go it wasn't, but figured "hey this guys more or less admitting he's an idiot who doesn't wanna address the issue, so take the prescription and strive towards seeing the Endo and getting his opinion". I do my best to not take my moods out on anybody else they straight up deserve it. I usually get up and walk away from dinner most nights or rush to eat so I can get the fuck away from my grandmother and her bullshit. I feel like my mom has this vision in her head that I was this totally different person on the meds, and I honestly wasn't that different. Sure I was having some pretty decent days, But even on the meds all it took was for my grandmother to start spewing her childish dumbass uneducated bullshit or my dad to act like the borderline retarded burnt out stoner he is and I would roll my eyes, scarf my dinner down, put my plate in the sink, toss the silverware in the sink pissed off and slam in my room to cool down and decompress. The only noticeable difference I felt on the meds was that I felt slightly better and it took the edge off, but if anything all the meds do was make me think before I speak and ultimately bottle more shit up because instead of just blurting something out like I usually would to keep somebody from saying something stupid to me (IE;My dad or gma) I would choose to not say it and just ignore it.
Am I overreacting? Am I being a bad son by refusing to take the meds for the sake that it makes my mom happy? Am I a bad son cause the first time in my life I can stand my ground medically and say no?