Dear Zoloft,

I wasn’t sad to see you go, but saying goodbye last week stirred up some feelings for me.

I know it won’t come as any surprise that I have a love-hate relationship with you. Remember how much I didn’t want you either time? And yet both times, I wound up profoundly grateful. You stepped up when I needed you to. You yanked me up from the flat heaviness. So thanks. You’re really good at that.

I’m sure you knew it was coming, so here it is—I have a few bones to pick. I’m not sure if you’re open to feedback, but since we’ve had such close relationship on and off for the last 5 years, I feel pretty qualified to give it.

Do you think it’s really necessary, when lifting someone from the pit of despair, to simultaneously smash their already-ailing libido down into the mud with the heel of your boot? I’m betting you’d have a way better reception with, say, every depressed and anxious person on earth if you could figure out how to focus on the job you were invited in to do rather than mucking around with one of the most basic and sublime pleasures of life.

And another thing: I think you should consider listing anxiety much more prominently as a side-effect on your label. That way, I would have felt less like a strung-out psychopath trying to explain my symptoms to the pharmacist.

“Hmmm,” she said, eyes scanning down the computer screen. “Nope. I don’t see anxiety listed here as a common or uncommon side effect.” (I can see how she missed it, since when I looked, I also scanned right past it; it was tucked near the bottom of a laundry list of delights like “loss of bladder control” and “unusual secretion of milk.”) She read the list for me, none of which I identified with until the last. “Mask-like face?” she asked. “Is that what it feels like?” Well, sort of.

So here’s the deal, Zoloft. After I started taking you the second time, my body started to feel like it was constantly in a war zone. Twitchy. On-guard. The muscles in my arms, hands, face and neck were taught and achy, my mind sharp and over-alert. So sure, mask-like-face covers a bit of that, but how about just bumping anxiety up in the list, or maybe adding body-like-a-war-zone? I know you’ve probably heard this before, because after I left about 300 phone messages and finally found a psychiatrist who specialized in post-partum mental health and was covered by my insurance, (BLESS HER) she told me that anxiety is a relatively common side effect of Zoloft.

Believe me, I know there’s a lot more to you than potential for anxiety, but you might as well be up front about it so that people like me and their pharmacists aren’t so ill-prepared, you know?

I really appreciate you reading this far – if you have – and let me please re-iterate that I really also appreciate you. Small, green, ovoid you. Once we sorted out all the anxiety stuff this last time, you really did the trick. And while I’m glad I don’t need you anymore, I have to remind myself that we may meet again.

I also want to acknowledge that I know it must be hard for you. I mean, you’re this awesome little pill that saves people from deep dark pits of hell and yet tons of people dread you and talk smack about you because we tell ourselves that you are a sure sign of our failure. That must really suck, since Tylenol and antihistamines and others in your cohort don’t really get that reaction. I’m sure you wish we could just see you more like that—a tool for coping with a symptom. Just so you know, I know that’s what you are. And I’ll have to remind myself of that if I need you again. But I hope I don’t. Because—no offense—I will feel like a failure of a person when I’m filling my prescription for you. Anyway, just know that I realize that’s my stuff, not yours. You really are good at your job. I know that. Lot’s of people know that.

Thanks for reading. I do hope you’ll consider some of my suggestions. And thank you, really, for all your help.

Take care,

Steph