There are few things I hate more than when I am wrong. I pride myself on never being wrong (or being able to talk people in circles until I can convince them I am right).Those lofty delusions of grandeur sometimes come back to bite me.

Today is one of those days.

A year ago I was going through a very rough patch and not coping well. I had been dumped in a cruel way, I hated my job, and I was spending more time alone than with other people. I was getting horrible panic attacks and generally just being plain miserable to everyone. To help me cope, the doctor suggested I take a low dose of an anti-depressant. For the better part of the year, I have generally had good days, and I have not had one panic attack. Because of this, I assumed that it would be okay to stop taking the pills. I take 9 other prescribed pills on a daily basis, and I figured one less in my day wouldn’t be a bad thing. I told David about this, and he told me that I shouldn’t stop taking them because I am better on them than off them. That hurt my feelings. A lot. I hate that I am dependent on the pain pills and the sleeping pills and immune boosting pills to survive my daily life, that I hated the idea that my anti-anxiety pills were no different. I always thought that one day I would be able to stop taking them and life would go back to normal (or at least I would be able to be in a crowded room or not have to sit on an aisle or near a door without feeling like the room is caving in on me). I ended the convo with David very quickly, and went to class still convinced that I know best and there is no reason for me to go back to the doctor to fill the prescription.

As most of my bad ideas, this one came back to bite me in the butt. For the better part of two weeks (about the same amount of time I have been off the pills) I have had strange headaches, and feeling a bit off. Today I had dinner with a large group of people, and I was sandwiched in an odd part of the tables that we had pushed together. I barely made it through dinner when I felt the all too familiar signs of a panic attack creeping on. I don’t know if it was the hot stuffy room, the way I felt trapped between people and tables, or the fact that I am ridiculously tired, but all I do know was five more minutes in there and I would have totally embarrassed myself.

And here is where I admit that I was wrong. Tomorrow I am going to drag my sorry little butt over to the health clinic and have my meds re-filled. I will talk to the doc about maybe working my way off of them one day. Today, it would seem, is not that day.