I Quit My SSRI and Became Absolutely Obsessed with Pedro Pascal
I'm not mad about it, per se...
I realized something was off in the Whole Foods dairy section.
My cart, filled to 60 percent capacity with organic vegetables and fruit, expensive condiments with pleasing graphic design, and salty snacks branded to trick you into thinking them “healthy”, filled me with dread.
Who do I think I am? The Queen of England? What kind of person does their FULL grocery shop at Whole Foods? An entitled piece of shit kind of person, that’s who! Everyone is judging me! I am the worst!
Of course, no one paid attention to the amount of groceries in my cart. And as if Whole Foods shoppers are judging each other for buying groceries at Whole Foods.
We’re judging each other about whether or not we brought reusable tote bags. (I always forget mine at home.)
At the time, my anxiety over dollars spent at Whole Foods was the least of my problems. My newborn baby required dozens of trips to the doctor— for all the regular baby stuff, but also for a tongue and lip tie, consultations with a lactation specialist, X-rays and endless follow-ups with a pediatric orthopedic surgeon about hip dysplasia. I developed Mommy Thumb, a debilitating tendonitis caused by repetitive stress from picking up my baby. I wrote a blog post in the wake of “grab her by the pussy”, and it went viral— crashing my website. I spent a week monitoring hundreds of comments and messages, some sharing vulnerable experiences with sexual harassment and assault, others trolling me. I mourned the career I worked so hard for that seemed to evaporate overnight. I couldn’t sleep, yet my fatigue plagued me at a cellular level. I worried incessantly about my perfect baby girl— what might happen if I left her with a babysitter? Or stepped away to get a haircut? How was I going to feel when she went off to college!? Oh god, and then Donald Trump became the actual president.
A series of heated comments on one of my social media posts— comments I understood but felt unnecessarily hostile— left me a shell of a human, staring blankly at the ceiling of the nursery for nearly two days.
I couldn’t do this anymore. I called my OB and started Zoloft.
Within a few weeks, I could buy organic kombucha and $8 pints of strawberries in peace. I detached from the news cycle. I hired a babysitter a few hours a week to give myself uninterrupted work time. Slowly but surely, I started feeling a like myself again.
Fast-froward five years, and I decided it was time to see if I could hang without my SSRI. While I knew the drug helped me manage the anxiety and depression, the side effects took a toll. While my lows had leveled out, my highs had, too. I felt like a zombie (foreshadowing!). I gained a significant amount of weight, and my joints ached. Though “they” claim weight gain should be minimal on Zoloft, Reddit told me a different story.
After discussing my options with my therapist, husband, and doctor, we devised a plan to wean myself off the meds over two months.
I’d been taking 50mg for quite some time, considered a fairly low dose. Sure, I’d heard people complain about the process of stopping an anti-depressant, but I wasn’t taking that much. How bad could it be?
I cut my dosage in half. Within a day, the vertigo commenced. I didn’t panic as I’d experienced this before when I forgot my medication on a weekend trip. I felt irritable, and nauseated. My head ached. Uncomfortable? Yes. Manageable? Also yes.
A month later, I attempted to cut the tiny pill into quarters, which created more of a drug dusting than a pill. The withdrawal symptoms remained about the same. Within a week, I ditched my Zoloft crumbles, fully stopping the drug. The dizziness and headaches waned. Six weeks out, I felt… pretty good, actually.
Except for one thing: I couldn’t stop thinking about Pedro Pascal.
My husband and I started The Last of Us during my Zoloft detox. I’m not really a zombie apocalypse show kind of person, and a show based on a video game? Puh-lease. But after many recommendations, we gave it a try.
I didn’t know much about Pedro before The Last of Us, but I knew I recognized the actor, maybe from Game of Thrones? It wasn’t until episode two that I found myself Googling “Joel Last of Us” from the couch.
As the fungus took over the human race, I slowly developed a harmless crush on the ruggedly handsome Pedro. And because this is how the algorithm works, my phone started serving me his interview clips. I learned he loves Tina Turner and Prince. (OMG Pedro, me too!) I learned he’s BFFs with Sarah Paulson, who I love in any show or movie and just seems like THE coolest. I learned he could wear a red jacket with black shorts at the Met Gala and somehow still look absolutely adorable.
But then I started noticing that Pedro wasn’t just showing up in my feed.
When I woke up, he was there. When I drank my coffee, there. As drove to work, all day at work, making dinner, bath time with the kids, falling asleep at night, I could not expel Pedro from my thoughts.
Today, it’s almost impossible to put myself back in that head space— the level of distraction consumed me like zombie fungus. It’s like when you get a song stuck in your head (one of my frequent flyers? “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion), but for a full month. And it’s not a song, it’s a person.
Not a regular person, but Pedro Pascal.
And not just Pedro Pascal at any time, but Pedro Pascal at the height of his popularity, with multiple hit shows, and on a hardcore press tour.
Everywhere I turned, I saw Pedro. Magazine covers. Texts threads. Anytime I went on the internet. Pedro was having a moment, and I was having a meltdown. And the worst part was that as distracting and uncomfortable as these thoughts were, I didn’t want to escape them, because he’s Pedro fucking Pascal and I might actually love him?
I tried to explain the situation to my husband.
I don’t get it, he said. Is it like… you actually want to have sex with him?
No, no, no, I said. It’s not like that. It’s more like… I wonder what he’s doing right now. And I’ll bet he’s so fun on a road trip because I’ll bet he has great taste in music, and we could probably talk about interesting books we’ve read. And I wonder what it would be like to come home from a long day to find him in my kitchen with some from-scratch pasta dish ready for me to taste. And okay, fine, if he wanted to have sex, I’d consider it.
My husband didn’t understand. We still refer to this stretch as the brief period I left our marriage for Pedro Pascal.
Two weeks into my madness, I explained the obsession to my therapist. I couldn’t stop laughing because it’s ridiculous, but also embarrassing? I wanted to unzip my skull and let Pedro run free (but no, Pedro, don’t leave me!). Ultimately, not being able to control my thoughts felt unsettling. I could barely stand it.
After we both stopped laughing, she told me that intrusive thoughts can be a withdrawal symptom from an SSRI, and that it would likely pass.
The next day, I received the one and only non-appointment related email from said therapist: a screenshot of Pedro Pescal meme with the words: This made me think of you! You’re right, this guy is everywhere.
Oh god, even my therapist is trolling me.
But she was right. Within the month, the Pedro fixation dwindled, finally settling in its normal celebrity crush resting place, along side Nick Offerman, Michael B. Jordan and Paul Newman.
An anti-depressant helped me manage one of the most challenging eras of my life. I’m grateful for the relief, but am in awe of the power these drugs harness. So powerful, in fact, that an A list actor lived in my brain for a full month. Honestly, I can think of worse things to obsess over.
Now I am back to thinking of only my husband, and what a wonderful man he is.
(But Pedro, if you are reading this, you can make me dinner any time.)
Who’s your celebrity crush? Share with the rest of us!
What a great post. Once upon a time I was on Zoloft, but weaned off it (now on a different SSRI), but I don't remember an obsession with anyone. I DO remember having the worst restless leg syndrome of my life. I'm glad you are happy and healthy.
Now I can reassure T that his feeling weird and awful and worse than usual is because he’s been titrated off Zoloft. Thank you for this as well as the Inside-Your-Head trip at WF.