Growing up with OCD, I was one of those kids who didn’t have to raise their hand every time they needed to go to the nurse.

As a lifelong member of the Dermatillomania (skin-picking) and Trichotillomania (hair-pulling) clubs, among others, let’s just say I’ve needed a lot of band-aids. So I was relieved when last year a psychiatrist told me about an awesome drug that has helped others overcome those specific habits, which I had always felt so isolated in having.

So our plan of 225mg daily, which is quite a lot, simply meant to me that I would be “cured” sooner rather than later.

However, he said, it would come at a price. No, the upwards of $300 for either the brand name of Effexor XR or the generic Venaflaxine at about the same price, wasn’t what he was referring to.

It was the brain zaps.

I was warned that the medicine has one of the shortest half-lives of all the SSRI (medicines that deal with the levels of serotonin in your brain, a chemical that makes you happy) medications. This means that, unlike prescriptions like Prozac, which build up in your system, Effexor begins working almost instantaneously upon ingestion and once it’s used up, you begin to experience withdrawal within 24 hours.

As he described symptoms of the usual sort, nausea, dizziness, I was so enthralled imagining the possibilities, I began to drift and likely had some deep-space look on my face.

But brain zaps brought me back.

He said they would begin as tiny flashes, like someone switching the lights off in your brain really quick and then turning them back on. But as time wears on and you go without the medication, that distinct flash becomes a foggy haze.

“A lot of patients describe it as being electrocuted in your mind; it’s not dangerous or harmful but it’s just really uncomfortable and inconvenient,” he assured me.

Whew.

Maybe it was an act of desperation or maybe my brain was still a little swollen from being in space, but I said, “Nah, I’ll definitely remember to take it.”

Well, I definitely forgot, many times. And pharmacies, appointments, insurance and my schedule didn’t always match up, many times.

It began to be an overwhelming force in my life that I resented, yet could not function properly without it. At a point, the OCD symptoms it had helped to rid of returned as a result of the anxiety I experienced taking the medicine, but after two or three days without it, I couldn’t safely drive myself.

Long story short, I decided to ask doc about kicking the habit. He said sure and I explained financial restrictions so we came up with a plan where I’m, as he described, a “guinea pig.”

After a month in, I can definitely say I’d rather be a slightly autonomous guinea pig than continue to fry my brain, if given the choice.