I want to make a baby, and I don’t want Baby swimming in SSRI soup.

“If you don’t like Celexa, you don’t have to continue taking it,” my doctor said. Yeah, I thought. I’ve heard that story before.

“I think you’d feel much better if you tried some medication other than Xanax,” he said. His concern was genuine. “Instead of treating your panic as it happens, we should try to prevent it.”

As I grumbled through redundant tasks (like adding and naming worksheets and copying and pasting cells into over 300 Excel files — seriously!), I found time to ask myself a bothersome question: why am I here?

All I wanted to do was drink my coffee and eat my grilled cheese and then call it a night. The pressure to participate in the upkeep of friendship was too exhausting to even consider. Why bother?

I wanted to re-frame a breakdown into a breakthrough.

Watch as I explain why I do what I do and why I feel so comfortable sharing all of my panic and anxiety-related sorrows, triumphs, dilemmas, and baby steps with the world.

The cost of Paxil CR multiplied. And I don’t mean by 2x, by 5x, or even by 10x. The cost multiplied by 12x. The cost of a year’s worth of Paxil CR suddenly became the cost of a single month’s worth of pills.

I was a junior in college, panic was making a daily appearance, and I was relying on Xanax for each attack. So, when my doctor prescribed Paxil, I accepted it with open arms. But in the long run, all I got was a big hug from Big Pharma.

Nearly 80 percent of all prescriptions for antidepressants are written by non-psychiatrist providers. Like my general practitioner, circa 2005, who appeared to be watching an invisible coin toss in the ceiling when deciding which antidepressant to prescribe for my panic attacks.