Hi,
I am a couple of days into an experiment that I have tried before. That is to stop medication. The trouble with medication is how do you know if it is working? How do you know if you still need to be on it? Do the side effects still outweigh the benefits? Of course the sensible thing to do is to taper off slowly but in this world if instant results that is just too slow. So I have gone cold turkey again. Physically I am not feeling too bad. Mentally I am not so sure? I am only a few days in and to start with I was very tired. Now I have insomnia and my mind is racing. On medication I am comfortably numb, I lack drive, I am happy to spend hours in bed, the house is a tip, I don’t go out etc. But I am largely anxiety free. Trouble is I feel I am wasting my life away. Off medication I feel more alive again, I still lack drive but emotions are starting to come back and so is the anxiety. I can feel past worries creeping back in and keeping me awake. The sour taste of depression is back but at least I feel not so numb. So which is better, the comfortable numbness of medication or learning to live with the anxiety and a mood disorder? I can’t help feeling that if I had more moral fibre I would just man up and get on with life, I would take setbacks on the chin and make my own luck. If I could live without medication I could get away from all the side effects like weight gain, excessive sweating, sexual dysfunction etc.
Of course my non-medicated me thinks I am weak and pathetic. The medicated me tends to think I am ill. Looking ahead I have some troubles coming my way, my son is soon to go off to university and I am full of regret of missed opportunities, self-contempt at my failings as a father, worried how I will cope without his good company. My father is in hospital with failing kidneys and that leaves me with mixed feelings. I don’t think he was a good father and I thought he was going to die before so I have already done my grieving. But what was I grieving, lost opportunities again I guess. I can’t drive as I was recently diagnosed with epilepsy. I drink too much and I am worried I am becomming an alcoholic or maybe I already am. My wife is 15 years older than me and I worry terribly about the day I no longer have her and I am on my own. I don’t treat her as well as I should but I do love and I am dependent on her, I don’t think I can live without her, the thought of that future fills me with a terrible dread. This all comes back to my selfish anxiety, that I don’t want to grow old, alone and mentally unwell. The thought makes me feel physically sick.
So, to get back to the plot, what am I to do? I ‘may’ stick it out a few days longer just of sheer curiosity but in my heart I already know the answer. If I stick to my current course I will spiral down again and I can’t return to the hell that landed me here in the first place. So I will go back to the safety blanket of medication. I must make some changes though. I will stick with a diet to lose some weight. I will try and get more exercise. I will try and grab the opportunities that I do still have before it is too late. I will find new interests and make new friends. I don’t think I will ever be able to consider myself well but with determination and the aid of chemicals I feel I need to try and improve my lot. I think I need to try and make some big changes and I hope I have the strength to carry them through. I have been without a care coordinator for the last few months but I am being allocated one in again in a month’s time. I feel I need their direction and support still. Being mentally ill really does p1ss me off and the road to getting one’s life back is slow and hard work.
BW, BM.