Posted by bob on April 21, 2000, at 0:23:08
In reply to Re: I am soooooooooo sick of this, posted by Phil on April 20, 2000, at 22:32:14
You and me both, sister!
Gimme a few months and I'll be 38 as well. I guess the big advantage I have on you is that I've been seriously depressed since I was 8. Didn't really get serious about treatment until I was, oh, 33 or so. Started meds a year later. My therapist told me, prior to my first prescription, that meds give you a different window on the world. Not necessarily better, not necessarily worse, but different.
Boy howdy, I'll sure say THAT was true!
Until that first 50mg of zoloft, I had never known just how depressed I was (yeah, it only took 50mg and about 20 minutes). Now, in the three years since, the meds I've been on have given me about 7 or 8 different windows on the world. I can't say that any of those were necessarily worse than being depressed and off meds, but some of them were definitely bad. Right now, I probably have the best view yet that hasn't made me giddy ... I had a manic response to zoloft the first time, and the memory of it makes it really difficult to accept anything else as good enough.
What my therapist should have said, perhaps, is that meds can give you a different window on yourself. Even when being emotionally flat was the best I could achieve, it still provided enough support for me to start looking at the dark places inside of me. Lately, going over the same "ground" I've visited with my therapist maybe four or five times before -- it's like an onion, peeling back the layers -- I've come to some realizations that are absolutely chilling. If I hadn't hidden these thoughts from myself when I was off meds, I know I wouldn't have survived them. Having tried to kill myself before, I know what took me to that point once -- this "new" stuff ... its thousands of times worse.
But, with where my meds have taken me, I can face that knowledge and see it for what it is ... and its doing me no harm.
I've been on meds for a small span of my life. It hasn't all been rosy, but I can't see going back. I can damn my parents for the way they didn't raise me and I can damn them for the genes they gave me. But I'm not going to damn myself because our culture has deeply-seated beliefs that I'm less of a person due to my disorder and I'm less of a person because I rely on medication to help my brain function.
F*ck that. Plain and simple.
Yes, its tiring. Yes, its hard. Yes, I can get soooooooo sick of it, too. But what makes it worse is the weight we put on ourselves and the weight that others put on us because of it. That's what I'm most sick of. So I don't hide it anymore, and I don't hide from it anymore. It's a piece of my life that I don't stick in people's faces, but if it comes up I bring it up plain as day. And THEN, if someone wants to give me some attitude about it -- then I stick it and their bigotry right back in their face.
I'm sick of fighting the wrong person. (yeah, that'd be me)
Pardon me for blowin' off, but I'm also sick of seeing so many of my friends so sick and so tired and so down.
allisonm, maybe seeing your pdoc for therapy isn't the best idea. I know some people prefer it and I guess in some places in can save on costs, but I see my pdoc for meds and that's what we talk about. Once a month. If any change goes dreadfully wrong, he's always a phone call away from me and a second call away from my pharmacy. He can ask me how I'm feeling -- my therapist can ask me how I *am*. It sounds like you were starting to "peel that onion", to get to something deeper, when you got distracted by the day-to-day.
You know, my last visit (just Monday) with my pdoc, we had some extra time and he started asking those questions about "how I am" instead of "how I feel" -- and the stuff I had to share with him from my last therapy session (the Friday before) practically made him blanch ... I can't imagine what he'd have me on if he had to deal with treating me on a weekly basis right now!
But I guess I could go to www.mentalhealth.com and make some educated guesses...
fight the good fight, okay?
Bob
poster:bob
thread:30771
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000420/msgs/30787.html