[TW: food, body image, dieting, weight discussion. I recognize I grew up in privilege and never experienced socioeconomic situations where hunger happened because there was no food. I struggled with money in my twenties and had to go hungry a few nights or live off oatmeal for a week but I always had safety nets. This post is solely my opinions on how I grew up and how that affected my relationship with food.]
I’ve been having issues with accessing my doctors lately. I’ve had many appointments pushed, by months, recently. I am leaning on the hope that everyone in the hospital system is just doing their best and this is just an unfortunate circumstance but it doesn’t remove all the frustration. One of these appointments was with my psychiatrist.
I was recently put on mirtazapine and stopped taking trazodone for mood/sleep coverage. Mirtazapine was supposed to cover what I was going to lose with the trazodone. But mirtazapine came with more than just some okay-ish sleep, I got a new emotion, fake hunger. Yup, I became hungry at all times. I woke up hungry, I went to bed hungry, I was hungry right after eating. It wasn’t normal.
Maybe it’ll get better?
My life’s motto
I’ve been on some restrictive diet probably around 20% of my life. Being overweight since age 9 will do that to you. I know what hunger feels like. Whether it be weight watchers and their point system to zone diet with their zones? I don’t remember. Neither really took. It wasn’t until ozempic that I truly discovered comfortable weight loss.
I’ve lived my life believing that weight loss had to hurt. You had to be punished for being fat. Your life was too indulgent and you need discipline, now learn to starve. Do you know how much it messes with your head to ignore a basic human need? My body wants food and I can’t eat it. To this day, I ignore bodily signals like having to pee for hours on end because “I can’t possibly have to pee yet.” (I blame ADHD for that.)
“I can’t possibly be hungry yet,” was a thought I never wanted to experience again, so, I spent the last 4 years eating what and when I wanted, regardless. I topped off at 322lbs at my heaviest and it wasn’t until this miracle drug, Ozempic, that I’ve ever been able to lose any significant weight. (I’m at 40lbs so far.) And I don’t feel hungry on it. I actually had a side effect of forgetting to eat at all then almost passing out from hunger. (Whoops.) That faded while my body got used to the drug and now I eat a normal amount of food to a small bird. It’s almost like a gastric band in a shot. I was able to be restrictive without the gut wrenching, soul crushing pain.
The mirtazapine brought back the hunger I was without for over 6 months and with it all my feelings of inadequacy and triggers came back too. I actually would feel hungry after just consuming anything. It was impossible to know when I actually needed food or was being tricked by this medicine.
As a child, I had a doctor tell me medication doesn’t cause weight gain. “Pills don’t have calories,” That was his excuse to shame me for my weight. I have been on hormonal birth control and antidepressants since I was 16. I was also 200lbs and 5’8” in the early 2000’s. I was fat and it was all my fault was the general message from everywhere. Society, peers, parents, doctors, gym teachers. But this new medicine might as well be served with a side of ice cream.
Pills don’t have calories.
My childhood doctor
Around the time I started mirtazapine, I was losing around 2lbs a week, consistently. I would have been on Ozempic for 7 months by then. Within the first 2 weeks of mirtazapine, I gained 2lbs. I not only stopped my descent, I pivoted and gained weight. It devastated me.
I decided to wait for my psychiatrist appointment to bring this up because my life’s motto is, “maybe it’ll get better?” It didn’t.
Then, my appointment was pushed two months. Thankfully, I am able to message my doctor through a patient portal. I explained the situation and he promptly (within 2 business days) messaged back to stop taking the mirtazapine. Full stop. There was no, “and start back on trazodone.” I’m just stuck now, in medication limbo, not sure if I will be able to sleep ever.
My only redemption is that I still have my adderall prescription. This is for a future post but I’m pretty sure I have always had ADHD/neurodivergent tendencies and not fitting in, being shamed when unmasking, and being exhausted from all of that is why I’ve been depressed since I was 9. Now, I’m learning how to live with the correct treatment and I would have to say, it’s not too bad.
Thanks for reading.
Lavender Skies 