I've been having these strong escapist fantasies. Like, what if I could stop all my medication and get in my car with Zac and just drive until we ran out of money or gas. We could live in the car, maybe on a beach somewhere or in the mountains of Vermont. I'd get a job waiting tables and my fantasy hasn't quite figured out what Zac would do all day - maybe play with the dog. I admit there are gaps in my fantasy. It would just be us and no one would know where we were. We would just disappear off the map for a while.
I think a lot about getting off all my meds. I don't mean titrating down from them. I mean just one day stopping. Are they really helping? Do they allow me to get out of the house and go to the grocery store and take a shower every day? I guess the basic answer is yes. And I suppose to some psychiatrists that means that my medication management seems to be working. I can perform basic functions and tasks. The greatest failing of psychiatry is that it fails to medicate happiness. Oh, how it tries! I can take meds to make me feel numb, to make me feel less sad, to make me stop crying...but I've never once experienced a medication that made me happy. Although, I guess even that statement needs to come with a qualifier because amphetamines can make someone pretty darn euphoric, but it only lasts for a couple of days. But happy? True happiness? How many years of my life have I spent trying to find happiness? Is it an attitude, a state of being, a period of gratitute? Therapists say I should consider it a life long journey, my personal Iilad to find happiness, but I know few people that would suffer through years of unhappiness to find fleeting moments of happiness. Most of just make do. We find joy in small things until one day we can't anymore.
In my weak moments, I think about the brain I had at 21. I was in my senior year of college and had never taken anything stronger than birth control and I had beautifully clear, brilliant thought. It was free of self doubt, guilt, and recrimination., It was free of failure. It was my brain in the purest form, before all the medical intervention. Before the mood stabilizers and the mood stabilizer boosters and the anti depressants and the anti anxiety medications. Before all of that. When my mind just operated.
My mentor recently asked me why the doctors thought I was so depressed and I thought about it for a moment. Most depression diagnosis is self-reporting, "Have you had any thoughts of hurting yourself in the past two weeks? Do you have less joy and interest in activities and people than you used to have?" So - I think it's a valid question. My parents have asked me this question in a number of oblique ways. Usually they say, "I don't know whatever you say to those doctors, but you end up in the hospital and there is nothing we can do to help you." So, could I change my answers on these self reporting tests and change the diagnosis? Yes, the answer is a very real and possible "Yes". I could game the system. I could appear happy and maybe they wouldn't see the cracks behind the facade. That's what I do at work and to a large degree, I'm successful.
But, what if in my imagination, I don't to lie. What if I didn't go to anymore prenatal, high risk, psychiatric, optometrist, fetal appointments. What if I stopped putting the chemicals in my body? Wouldn't eventually, eventually, my brain return to the state it was when I was happy? Have I so altered my chemistry that I can't find happiness anymore if it hit me?
I just want to escape from what I feel trapped in. I want to stop being hurt by people that I thought cared about me. I want to stop showing doctors my scars and offering my brain up for their testing ground. I want to put a stop to it. My Mom was right. My brain isn't strong enough for this pregnancy.
Not how I expected my morning to go
6 days ago
2 comments:
I understand what you are saying, but there is a fatal flaw in your medication logic. You are looking to them as the cause of your problems, as if since 21 there have been no other events that could have altered your psyche or hormones. You look to them and place blame on them for what they are trying to help. No, they won't and are not intended to induce happiness. They are intended to stop the emotional free fall.
I can also tell you from first hand experience and from a purely practical perspective, not titrating off of them does BAD things. It's not like you are stopping birth control. They WILL cause bad things to happen while your brain is exposed to and onrush or lack of chemicals that alter how it functions. I don't just mean from a purely psychological perspective, I mean real, physical things like discomfort, pain, odd sensations that are overwhelming. It's not fun, trust me.
Also, remember that right now, from a hormonal perspective you are not the same person that they have been treating.
But, I know that this is a very analytical post, and no matter how much sense it makes, it won't matter, it's the nature of the beast, and was by far the most infuriating part of my dealing my my anxiety. KNOWING that my assessment of things was wrong, but not being able to suppress it.
I've stopped before. I know what happens. I know about the pain, the electric shocks, and the crying. I also know that it passes. I'm in a bad place and I have to believe their is a light at the end of the tunnel. I haven't seen that light no matter how much they increase my medication or start me on another one to augment the one they don't think is working well enough. It's been almost 10 years. Sometimes it's just time to stop fighting.
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