Hi, I’m Susan Petersen founder and CEO of Freshly Picked. I’ve been running FP for 13 years, and in that time we’ve had a lot of highs and lows. The last 4 years have been super hard, and I’ve been working through lots of struggles related to work and my personal life.
In September of 2021, all of it caught up with me, and I had a nervous breakdown.
I know, I know, nervous breakdown isn’t a medical term, but my doctor and I have agreed to call it that. I was fine one day, I was heading to a therapy session and was wondering what the topic of conversation would be. Everything was going well. The next morning I was out for a walk and fell over because of a panic attack. I ran into a fence. I immediately called my husband and had him pick me up.
I thought I was having a heart attack.
We drove to my doctor’s office, where they ran a bunch of tests and everything came back normal..ish. He sent me home diagnosed with acute anxiety, OCD, and depression. The next couple of weeks were hell. I was having at least 2-3 panic attacks a day with non-stop anxiety in between. I couldn’t eat, sleep, or leave my house. My capacity went from a full, busy, and fulfilling life to comatose on the floor.
My doctor wanted me to start medication immediately. I felt like I could work through it and not need any form of medication. I have always struggled with some form of anxiety and dealt with imposter syndrome and bouts of depression. Those struggles always went away in the past. However, things got to crisis level, and my husband begged me to try the medication.
After speaking with my doctor, we landed on a SSRI medication for me to start with. I feel really lucky that after the initial 6 week period, the first medication I tried worked for me. I honestly wish I would’ve started the medication years ago. Now that I’m more stable, I can see how damaging muscling through situations was for me. I feel like medicine saved my life.
Once the medication started working, I found ways to take care of my body as well. I started eating clean and working with a specialist to fix my gut, liver, and thyroid. Crazy how in tune our minds and bodies are. I also started weekly therapy sessions to talk through areas I was stuck in.
Medication, therapy, and a diet have been life-savers, but the biggest thing I did was to be kind with myself. I cleared my calendar, worked from home, and handed off big projects. I turned down social engagement for 4 months and I deleted all social media from my phone. Rest was the key for me and taking it very seriously worked wonders.