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This
Storyline starts here
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I don't know where my aversion to medications comes from. I have enough difficultly letting myself take common painkillers but face an actual dread of mind-altering substances including anti-depressants.
Some of the superficial stuff is easy to identify but not so easy to quantify.
- anti-depressants somehow means giving up. This isn't rational but it's really deeply rooted.
- not being "me" any more. But see below about losing myself anyway.
- perhaps more specifically "not being (able to be) the me that I want to be". This is a significant part of why I don't drink. I've been accused multiple times of "being afraid that I might have fun" but actually one of the things I'm afraid of is that my concept of "fun" will shift to include the stupid and obnoxious things I see intoxicated people doing. The others are that I will be an angry hurty drunk (aspects of my nature that I constantly override to be the person I want to be) and addiction - because I am susceptible and again I work hard to restrict my addictions to harmless activities.
There is an argument to be made that alcohol is actually a -more- serious mind-affecting substance than properly prescribed a-ds and the conceptual inversion of that relationship is actually simply ... cultural for lack of better term.
~~~
Over the past 12 months I've noticed that each time I crash and recover I've stopped caring about something. It might be something related to my work ethic. It might be something about how I relate to people. That's how I got the beard - after one crash I stopped caring about shaving. Fortunately I still care enough about a tidy appearance to trim.
It feels like my psyche is cannibalising tiny bits of itself to survive. This poses a problem because sooner or latter I'm going to stop caring about things that really matter (if I haven't already). Sooner or later I'm going to stop caring about being the person I want to be and just revert to being ... something else. Something/somebody that doesn't care.
~~~
I haven't been to the counsellor for a couple of months because Xmas, and he's been away. But it feels like somewhere in those couple of months I may have stopped caring about the pills so much. Maybe this year I'll try anti-depressants even though the thought make me want to break down. After all, what do I have to lose?
~~~
~~~
As an additionally poignant note the above comic was published on the first anniversary of my brother-in-law's suicide.
Storyline starts here
~~~
I don't know where my aversion to medications comes from. I have enough difficultly letting myself take common painkillers but face an actual dread of mind-altering substances including anti-depressants.
Some of the superficial stuff is easy to identify but not so easy to quantify.
- anti-depressants somehow means giving up. This isn't rational but it's really deeply rooted.
- not being "me" any more. But see below about losing myself anyway.
- perhaps more specifically "not being (able to be) the me that I want to be". This is a significant part of why I don't drink. I've been accused multiple times of "being afraid that I might have fun" but actually one of the things I'm afraid of is that my concept of "fun" will shift to include the stupid and obnoxious things I see intoxicated people doing. The others are that I will be an angry hurty drunk (aspects of my nature that I constantly override to be the person I want to be) and addiction - because I am susceptible and again I work hard to restrict my addictions to harmless activities.
There is an argument to be made that alcohol is actually a -more- serious mind-affecting substance than properly prescribed a-ds and the conceptual inversion of that relationship is actually simply ... cultural for lack of better term.
~~~
Over the past 12 months I've noticed that each time I crash and recover I've stopped caring about something. It might be something related to my work ethic. It might be something about how I relate to people. That's how I got the beard - after one crash I stopped caring about shaving. Fortunately I still care enough about a tidy appearance to trim.
It feels like my psyche is cannibalising tiny bits of itself to survive. This poses a problem because sooner or latter I'm going to stop caring about things that really matter (if I haven't already). Sooner or later I'm going to stop caring about being the person I want to be and just revert to being ... something else. Something/somebody that doesn't care.
~~~
I haven't been to the counsellor for a couple of months because Xmas, and he's been away. But it feels like somewhere in those couple of months I may have stopped caring about the pills so much. Maybe this year I'll try anti-depressants even though the thought make me want to break down. After all, what do I have to lose?
~~~
~~~
As an additionally poignant note the above comic was published on the first anniversary of my brother-in-law's suicide.
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no subject
Date: 2012-02-05 01:40 am (UTC)From:I've been dealing with depression since I was a kid. I kept going by sheer bloody-mindedness pretty much the entire time, and it was hard. The thing that finally convinced me to take the damn pills was the onset of post-natal depression: I had to do for my kid what I refused to do for myself. He deserved better than a barely-functional parent.
It was a start. Counselling was the other essential part -- it helped me clear out the worst of the self-loathing. Not that it's all gone, but I've never gone back to the full-on levels I had at that point.
The depression doesn't go away -- they've given in and called it dysthymia -- but it's manageable, mostly. And when it's not, I know I'll come back up eventually.
I'm on my fourth SSRI, with breaks in between. I went off the last one because I felt it had done all it could, and I really didn't like that it seemed to make everything grey: nothing felt really awful, but nothing felt particularly good either. That was one of the things I discussed with my GP when I admitted I really had to go back on antidepressants (or dried frog pills, as I prefer to call them) a couple of years back. Fluoxetine has worked well for me, evening out my mood without greying me out. It doesn't fix everything, but getting the brain chemistry more balanced makes the rest less of a struggle.
Point being: you are harming yourself by allowing this to continue. That's stark, but it's true.
There is help available -- your counsellor is a big part of that. Another part is actively working to balance your brain chemistry.
It is no more 'giving up' than admitting you need a physio to help get a damaged joint working properly. Yes, you can keep going indefinitely, in pain. But it won't get better that way.
The first antidepressant you take probably won't be the right one. It almost never is. That doesn't mean they don't work, just that it's the wrong fit. There will be an option that helps lift your mood without messing you up in other ways -- it's just a matter of finding it.
Your life is yours, and how you manage it is your choice. But as a friend, I would very much like to see you making choices that make you healthier and (in the long run) happier.
If it would help to talk, you know where I am.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-06 07:14 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-02-06 10:01 am (UTC)From:If you need an ear, call me. If I'm not up to it, I'll let you know.
[hugs]
no subject
Date: 2012-02-05 03:36 am (UTC)From:Second - I know what you mean. When I was really down in my second year at uni, the doctor mentioned anti-depressants, and I refused them. I'm glad I did, because I've found my sadness is related to perfectionism, and I can work to get a handle on that without needing chemical help.
But, if it helps make things more manageable in a way you can't get without them, then take 'em!!
no subject
Date: 2012-02-06 07:17 am (UTC)From:And just trying to rest better and manage my time better isn't helping with that at all.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-06 02:49 am (UTC)From:It's not weak to take medication. I've had to take it twice to get through the worst patches, and for most people it's a short term thing to help break through a mental block in therapy.
*hugs*
no subject
Date: 2012-02-06 07:31 am (UTC)From:Excuse me, I read your LJ too you know. You've been putting an incredible amount into coming to terms with some of your deamons over the past couple of years and don't try to pretend otherwise.
You might have been putting just as much into avoiding some of them, but that's beside the point. You've been fighting and winning - or at least drawing - battles on a scale that I am selfishly thankful never to have had to deal with.
~~~
It's not that I perceive turning to medication to be weak. I certainly don't view others who chose it in that light - for some people it's right. If my attitude were that simple I could define it, work with it.
Instead it strike deep at some core -belief-, -faith- that I have in -my own-, in my bodys -own-, ability to heal. Physical injuries you put things back in the right place and let the body do its thing. Intellectually I know that this is the same thing on a micro scale, and I even have some understanding of the mechanics, but it -feels- wrong like nothing else I've ever considered.
And I'm really concerned that that in itself will counteract and undo any good work putting the drugs in my system might do in the first place.