As mentioned two (or three?) posts ago, I had a long session on the bike (11 miles?) a few Sunday nights ago. That night at the gym, specifically on the bike, I thought about a lot.
Over the course of each of our lives, we all obviously hit the typical obstacles. Some of us hit some of the more personal ones, the rarer ones. Now it's well-known that people either deal with it or they don't. I've certainly been on the
don't side, but how
low on that side? In reality, I haven't had it physically as low as others, but mentally I've been right there. Most people hardly ever have it
that bad, we here in the states hardly ever know
real problems. However, my own dark times lead me to be isolated among those with problems I couldn't imagine. Problems that make issues like depression, anxiety or attention-deficit look like nothing. Medications can be prescribed and appointments made as you go on from one doctor to another. Your behaviors and the reactions to those around you are changed. However those feelings of darkness, loneliness, emptyness, or whatever you want to call it, are not.
So how does one go from not dealing with it, to overcoming it? Medications can make you feel like a different person, or can make you not feel at all.
If you're on a specific medication and you're feeling all great and positive directly because of the medicine, are you better off?
No.Is it realistic to feel that you like yourself better while on the medication? Has all that weight been lifted off your shoulders?
No, and
no. It is
not realistic, and the weight has simply been shifted. When your body adapts to the dosage and that med doesn't free you of those demons any longer, what do you do? You up the dosage, or you move to a higher prescription. Is this healthy?
No. Does it ultimately solve your issues?
No. Anyone who claims a substance is their release is completely out of touch with reality. Completely. Those of us who've been there know it's hard, but it's absolutely true. The balance of happiness and sadness in one's life can be a tricky thing. But prescribed or not, meds and substances do not offer true escape. They only numb us, only increase our ability to be
passively content with the failures in our lives.
I'm lucky enough to have been surrounded most of my life by people who helped bring me out of a darker period. People can voice the potential they see in you or they can make excuses for you. Fortunately I learned the difference. Sweeping our problems under the rug for some temporary-fantasy escape of reality is nothing but a detriment to ourselves and a flat-out insult to those who see the best in us. It wasn't anything that I put into my body to make me discover the love for me. If anything it was getting off of meds that made me see the foolishness and selfishness in believing that a drug can change your core for the better. One too many fall for the illusion and let the excuses (lies) become the truth in their eyes.
So, so fortunate. The family, the friends I've had, the loves I've shared, the strangers I've met among travels. I've seen the good, bad, ugly, and outright disgusting. But the positive support, the positive reflection you can be shown of yourself through these familar and unfamilar faces will do more for you than any med or drug will. I love that I love the me that I am of every second during every day without the help of anything. If you live your life dependent on anything other than yourself, and
positive friends and family, then you're quite honestly and quite sadly, lost.
