As is so often the case with people in recovery and people suffering from any sort of life long affliction, every once and awhile you get this feeling of wonder. I wonder what would happen if I did it on my own?
For people on medicine they call it self regulation. Pulling yourself off the anti-depressant, just too see. Often times you wonder, do I really need this? Maybe the reasons I'm taking it are all gone.
For people in recovery, they call it writing more of your story. Any time someone goes back out and the question is asked, where is so and so, the answer is they were not done writing their story.
Inevitably, however, pulling yourself off the medication or having just one more drink or missing a few meetings in a row reminds us why it is we were doing those things to begin with. Because we need them.
For me, that's what this place and this past month have been. Self regulation. An experiment in wondering what it would be like to be cured. And then sometime about a week or so ago I was sitting at my desk and all I could think about was how much I wanted to pack up and run away and it hit me. That realization that I'm not cured, I may never be cured. And unless I continue to take care of myself I will just slip back into my old ways.
Yet still, it was hard to get back here. There are only a couple people that I know IRL that read here yet at the end of the day it's hard to write about some of this stuff knowing they are there. Which seems counter intuitive because the whole reason I told them about this space was so that they could understand.
Understand what? Perhaps what it's like to live with mental illness. How I can wake up one morning and want nothing more than to run away from my life and not know why. I have a pretty good life right now. I have supportive family, fantastic friends, and a boyfriend whom I love more every day. So logically, when I look at my life I see no reason I should be unhappy.
How do you explain that to people? How do you say to them, hey yeah... everything in my life rocks right now but I'm crawling out of my skin and having panic attacks and would like nothing more than to get in my car and keep driving forever.
It's not you, it's me.... really.
So I'm back. Ready to write more of my own story. To get more of it out there in the hopes that it will help me to feel just a little more cured. Just a little more like I imagine everyone else gets to feel on a daily basis.
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4 comments:
I know what you mean. I did the same thing when I left Ex-Dbag and got with DH. I was happy about everything life was great... I took myself off of anti-depressants and then it went downhill and downhill fast. It took me a few months to realize that I had some work to do. Luckily it only took you a month.
I am glad that you are back... for you. I often wonder if you would ever stop going to Al-anon... I hope that is a no. You need it still... even if you are happy with the way your life is going. IT is going this well, b/c of the things that you have learned, and what you continue to take away from those meetings.
-k
Everything you wrote is exactly why you need to continue to write and why I need to continue to read it!
My favorite whey your felling the worst iand someone says to you ....just count your blessings or exactly what do you have to be depressed about. If I could put my finger on it I could fix you people.
I had that very same feeling before the Z*loft. I also found I need to do whatever it takes to keep those feelings at bay. I'm not sure I'll ever go off it.
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