Sunday, February 21, 2016

This thing I call living

I'm sitting here feeling the effects of missing a dose because I spilled the water on my bedside table yesterday. I forgot to go back and take the meds after I made it to the kitchen when my day started. Today: nausea, my extremities feel constantly tingly/on fire, lucid dreams, and super dizzy. 
It makes me see the ramifications of being on medicine in the first place. I feel my mortality, the tenuous connection I have to sanity, and my frailties. 
While I know I need my psychotropic drugs, the side effects are a fairly big deal. I often wish I didn't have to take them. I wish I had a reliable memory.
Clinical depression 90% of the time requires medication. That's just the way of it. But there are some people who do beautifully on homeopathic, footzoning, diet changes, sunshine regimes, etc. It's definitely worth looking into the non-drug stuff, for sure. I did. Of course, I ended up in the psyche ward because my Bi-Polar Depression isn't the kind of challenge that is going to go away just because I'm stubborn and was raised to think pharma is evil.
There are mental tricks, tips, mantras, breathing techniques, and all other kinds of coping strategies that are awesome and helpful. I use these all the time. 
So many different tools for the so many different versions of mental illness. Not one person's depression is the same as another's. Not one person's Bi-Polar is the same as another's. Same with anxiety, and any of the other mental illnesses that go into this list.
I know there are people who are positive that if I'd just do this one thing, I'd be healed. Today, while making myself get up and deal with the eating, moving, kidlet wrangling, and loss of most of the day, I look at my life and realize that there are a great many things that I have the power to change. .
Yet there are some things that I have no control over. Some things that would require a miracle or two to fix. And while I personally believe that miracles can and do happen, often daily, I have been told 'No' to the removal of this particular challenge. It's something that frustrates me, inspires me, paralyzes me, and kicks me into action just to prove that I'm not a hopeless lump. It's terrifying at moments, humiliating at times when my failures seem so enormous. Humbling at having to rely on others to pick up the slack.
But amazingly enough, it's also rewarding. The amount of people who contact me and tell me how encouraging it is that I'm willing to talk about it. That I show my insides. The fears, the urges - like wanting to run away, or face the wall let the darkness consume me. Or the *need* that sometimes comes to the forefront of my mind, the one that says to take that long walk and disappear into the bottom of the lake that's just over yonder. 
Things I *have* to discuss so they don't become truth. I'm still here. Today that alone feels like a miracle. 
Rob has to have his meds to stay alive. Physically, his body will reject his kidney, and his body will stop functioning if he doesn't have his medication.
My medication is also necessary for my survival. I don't have a transplant, diabetes, or some other horrible disease that is slowly eating away at my ability to live. My body isn't failing. I can breathe, eat, walk, talk, taste my food, not worry about my blood sugar (now that I'm off the risperdal,) etc. 
But without my meds, I won't survive. The chemicals in my brain will change my mental state of mind, my ability to discern truth vs lie in my own thoughts, and my interpretation of communication with others. It will affect my motivation, energy levels, and ability to reason in a logical fashion. It's happened before, affecting my decisions and choices which felt right at the time. 
I suppose I'm being self-involved and unable to focus on those around me today. I have a friend in rehabilitation I should go visit. He had a knee replaced a while back, and then had to have surgery again after part of it tore. Yet driving today would be a very stupid choice, and well... I'm not going to get into the other why's and wherefores of not getting there. But I know he loves company, and I should get over there.
But at the moment, just interacting with my kids feels like the most I can do for serving those around me. I hope on some level it counts.

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