Dreams & Medication

During my travel from married to single I experienced some health problems, a jittery heartbeat with chest pains ending in a trip to the ER.  They kept me overnight, ack!  Many tests later my heart was pronounced healthy with an odd early heartbeat called a PVC, GERD, and severe stress.  My doctor put me on a small dose of Z*loft, an SSRI, not my favorite thing to do but I needed more peace than I could give myself.  It worked.  Then it started keeping me awake at night so I tapered off a little and then just quit.  I've replaced it with nearly daily trips to the gym.  Now I'm sleeping, a lot, and having odd dreams that are probably related to stopping the Z*loft. 

Last night I dreamed I was an newly minted Orthodox nun, except we were all dressed in white and the orthodox nuns are usually dressed in black as far as I know.  I was assigned to hand out medications to the poor but whoever was in charge was just giving me handfuls of assorted pills with verbal instructions to give this to so and so and that to so and so.  All of which I promptly forgot so no one got anything as I wasn't allowed to write instructions down.  That was disturbing.  But there is a repetitive theme that has appeared in this dream and all the others over the week, having the ground crumble out from under me.  I drive down a dream road and when I try to drive back up it has washed away or fallen over the edge.  When I walk somewhere in my dream the same thing, or I open my front door and there is a huge hole in front of the place I'm living.  I think its SSRI withdrawal and a belated reaction to a failed marriage which was like the ground crumbling under me.  Some years ago I took Z*loft after my mother died, and while it perked me up, it also made it nearly impossible for me to sleep.  I'd forgotten that.  Still I think less drugs is better for me, and probably I need to process what happened to my life the last few years further and continue jumping on that treadmill in the gym.  Nothing is over until its over.