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.
Well said. While some medications are necessary others aren't and really cover up the major issue. After my accident, doctors prescribed a series of anti anxiety, anti depressant, and sleep medications for me. Took them for about a week and then flushed them down the toilet because I realized that I wasn't dealing with the issue at hand. You just have to be strong enough to break free from them, because in the long run you are so much better, especially if you talk to those positive people in your life!
ReplyDeleteThank ya much. Yeah, many things can be prescribed for us, or discovered via other means, but it's only an unhealthy cycle when you become dependent on them to be happy, even worse when you need them to actually accept yourself. I'm not sure when you had to take, but I did for years when I was younger. And after that, and knowing how far I've come personally, it's rather unbearable to witness friends have to rely on something to feel at one with themselves.
ReplyDeleteI went on them after a crisis my sophomore year of college for a few months until my ex flushed them down the toilet because they turned me into a zombie, and then after my accident off and on for a few months until I realized they were turning me suicidal. They can really change a person and are wayyyy over prescribed. I am happy to hear you've come so far!
ReplyDeleteWell that was def good of him =) But yeah, it was awhile ago. Just wish some of the people I knew now could see it that way.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a selfish view and depression and anxiety is just as real of a disease as cancer is. Maybe your issues were better solved with therapy and self-appreciation, but not everyone is so lucky as to just change their mindsets.
ReplyDeleteEntitled to your opinion, Anonymous. Therapy and self-appreciation, not so much. Maybe the latter helped to ensure that I continued to improve once that appreciation developed, but I resolved mine simply through living. I'll admit I'm more strong-willed than the average. You first suggest that therapy and "self appreciation" were my remedies, then imply that one day I just effortlessly shrugged my shoulders and said to myself "Eh, I think I'll change my mindset." So which is it?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure where I discredited depression and anxiety as the lesser of serious conditions out there as opposed to your comparison, which was cancer, but okay I'll re-read it and see. Hmm.. nope, don't see any hint of that. And is cancer really a condition to compare here? Maybe you think so. I, however, do not. Sufferers of clinical depression, ADHD, anxiety, etc, have the ability to shed those sicknesses at any moment. Everyone is different. It is often the timing of the right combination of many variables that lifts someone from that darkness. Cancer patients? Eh, I don't really see them having, in this comparison, that luxury.
Medications do wonders when it comes to the mind, I do not dispute that. But my point is, to justify the using of an OTC med or illegal substance by stating it makes you like yourself better or takes away your problems is not a solution to the issue. I believe it is a slap in the face to those who are unfortunate enough to be prescribed legit medications for these conditions, those who take pill after pill after pill just hoping one day they'll smile easily, just to hope they will find sunny days.
When those with hints of these conditions who instead of getting the help they need, just milk it for what it's worth and use it as an excuse to use, or those fully capable of being happy but have self-imposed negativity in their lives instead choose to take lightly all of the love and loyalty that their friends and family show, it severely pisses me off. Don't use the serious conditions of others as a weak ass excuse for your own self-imposed problems. It's cowardly and a sickness in it's self.
Diagnosing and treating patients with depression, ocd, anxiety, and other mental health issues isn't an exact science. We do not know enough about the brain and the human body to know the effects of every drugs on every specific person. For you, therapy and self-realization of your problems worked. Drugs didn't help. But for others, it is more than a personality issue. It is the difference between life and death.
ReplyDeleteThousands of people die every year from sucicide because of despression and other mental health issues. You think that they thought that they had a choice?? Do you think that given the option to get a job, focus on life, etc. that they would be laying 6 feet under?
You are entitled to your opinion, everyone is. And yes, I agree that some people need to confront their demons and not rely on self medication. But for others, depression is real and I think it is a slap in the face to the millions of people who wake up every day and ask themselves "Why me?" Depression and mental health disorders are real. Medication does help some people. It only furthers the problem when people like you are stereotyping people with mental health issues as "lazy" or "unwilling" to change. Most can not. We, as a society, can not confront this issue, and save thousands of lives, until mental health is recongized as a major factor in overall health and is given the recognition it needs.