Lisa - "happy" pills are 50 mg of Zoloft daily. They work well for me. I have come to realize I have battled depression on and off for YEARS (in the double digits) and just not recognized it as such.

The past 2 years have been especially harsh. My beloved grandfather was attacked in his home and murdered by a family member he loved and trusted. My mother was diagnosed (and has beaten the pants off of!) stage 2b breast cancer. Then there was the inevitable (in my family anyway) issues over the sale of the family home (Pop-pop's that is) and distribution of property, and my drug using Aunt. Just to name a few things.

The Zoloft - for ME- takes the edge off - it lets me be ME again without the anger, sometimes rage at my helpless children and hubby. It lets me not have the deep down lows. For some women they say that it takes away ANY emotion. For me this is not the case, I still feel happy, sad, angry, joyful ect. It seems to remove the extremity of emotion, and lets me deal with the minutiae of my day to day life without getting bogged down in it.

Also - my sex life has improved (TMI I know) poor DH while I was suffering - BOY was he suffering. It's not perfect, but it's better by worlds.
We can fight productively now also instead of me falling to pieces.

I have renewed my interest in my interests (does that make sense?) I am back to gardening happily, not burying myself in books endlessly and ignoring the world, my kids and the housework. I am sewing when I feel like it, I am TEACHING my children instead of just feeding them.

Being ME (I want to say again - but I am not sure that I was ME before!) has allowed me to contemplate things I hadn't before - like homeschooling my children. I have finally gotten back to church and re-connected with my faith. I am seriously contemplating another child (or 2).

Here is the other side. While off it for 3 days - we were short on $$ and couldn't pick up the script until yesterday (I got it last night and am back on !) I was moody. Yesterday was kinda bad. I was sooooo tiered (one of the reasons I had gone to the doc a year ago - I was not sleeping at night my brain just would not shut off). After a couple days I felt like I had before I was on them. And in order to have those children we want, I have to go off them for a year. And THAT scared me. I can breastfeed while taking Zoloft (although I would probably half my dose) but I sure can't get and be Pregnant on it.

I love being plugged in to my family instead of just existing in it. And the truth is I am a little scared of having to go off me "happy" pills to grow my family. Hopefully, when the time comes I will know what to do. It will require alot of prayer (something I did not have before) and support(I will have MORE of that this time around) so I don't distance myself from them.

Having another child is a few months off. We have some construction that MUST be finished before we can do this - and although Man plans and God laughs we don't plan on trying (and I have birth control in place) to conceive until early spring next year (o7) so that the baby clothes we have will work for the new baby (since both our kids are winter babies).

So - that was a LONG answer for a relatively easy question! Sorry! I didn't realize this was going to be an Ode to Zoloft, but maybe if more of us come "clean" about sometimes needing help than maybe it wouldn't be so taboo (and morons like Tom Cruise would just shut up and look pretty and sell movies)