Until I find something better to talk about I guess I have this to talk about.
This quitting lexapro journey has gotten difficult, if you’ve read my last two threads then you know what I mean. Basically around the 6 month mark shit started getting real.
I mean that in sort of a literal sense, like. I almost felt as though I was maintaining a false life, a life that wasn’t authentic. Remaining in a reactionary state, due to the way my brain processed traumatic things.
The medication was great for helping me in a time of crisis, when my brain was doing a lot of kung fu and back flips, basically in a very over excitatory state responding to the traumatic stuff. It’s wild, how little, can cause such a cascade, of big big problems. And the longer you don’t address them the bigger they get. However, the notion that the bigger the problem or the more complex, the longer it takes to solve or to become comfortable or functional, is a false notion.
It is possible for even the most traumatized people to find healing. The reality is a bit harsh. I had to set aside my personal goals, for my own well being.
I was in a state of what modern common trauma models have labeled freeze, fawn, and there are three other states I’ll share here let me grab them.
The mediation helped my brain stop doing so much of that, because it was over drive, and harming me, mentally. But after enough time, I focused on my recovery, I poured in whatever good I could find, without doing any real soul searching, I barely scratched the surface of it…
I stayed in this place for a long time. Some may stay here their entire lives. It’s very difficult to stoop any lower. Remove the facade. Take away the comfortable blanket of medication.
But I am a true grit kind of person, so this is a modality that works for me. For some, this might not be the right thing to do, for them. Everyone finds their own way to achieving a healthier mental state. Ok. That’s the truth.
Doing this is dangerous. But this is just how I’ve always been and done things.
For the longest time, I felt like I wasn’t really dealing with things. Because there was no point, as it couldn’t possibly get any better from me doing so. It is only more destabilizing, and what to be gained from it. I saw no hope for improvement past where I had already gotten. I was willing to remain comfortable in that place where I had gotten for a long time.
Maintaining a surface level, maintaining a detached life, detached and hollow. Medication can assist you in doing this happily, and for some, this may be necessary, in order to find their path to healing. Whatever weight they have to bare, it is too much, too toxic, to allow them to survive it. I understand that. I’ve been there.
But eventually, the medication felt like more of a hindrance. It made me tired, it made staying fit more difficult. But the anxiety attacks I was having, trust me, you’d take a pill too if it made them stop.
But I had all these lingering unaddressed things, that I feel like, if I couldn’t really feel them, I would never be able to bring them to light, sort it out, and work through it using a therapy approach.
How can you solve a problem you can’t even see? It’s like yeah, I used to be depressed, now I’m so medicated, I don’t notice it. I know it’s a huge problem, but I can’t talk about what I think or feel, what made me sick, what apprehended me, what got me into this mess etc. because I don’t have any thoughts like that anymore and I can hardly remember what they were and they don’t feel significant to me.
and yet I felt something still lingering. The inkling was just a faint whisper. I knew I had to experience it and go through it in order to really be free to really get off the medication, for good, etc.
I wanted to try recovery stage II. recovery stage I was good because it kept me alive, and I became no longer fully suicidal, no longer had ideation. Finding a will to live is important. All the time I spent on my recovery and connecting with people in recovery was life changing and extremely important. But it wasn’t all of it, and I knew that, and everyone in recovery who I spoke to, knew that. I needed a kind of help that was beyond recovery or recovery was one component of my healing. But I needed more. That was evident.
Because my progress was great, but not great enough. An internal progress. And an effort at external, though very little, to be honest. Leaps and bounds in some areas- other areas, total relapse, 10 steps backwards. Some areas marked improvement, other areas, stagnation.
I thought who can possibly help me. Now, at this point where I’m at, with my issues so seemingly complex and over bearing, and time consuming. Many can relate to this. The mental health community may have let them down and left them jaded. It can be overwhelming. Who possibly has the time to spend, helping someone like me of all people. Who has the money for that. The quality of care I require, the length of it, the cost is ungodly.
I was catastrophizing and overthinking my own recovery, yeah. This is what happens when you stop taking your meds.
I have fallen into a trap of overthinking everything, to a point it came to a really dark place, with seemingly no way out.
But the truth is, you have to alleviate the burden of that overthinking in order to find success with your recovery aka being able to engage with it in a way that’s helping you. So no longer being burdened with the negative aspects of your overthinking is extremely important to your health. All of this is practical and reasonable, but how do you make it stop.
Mine got to a point, I really was thinking about taking my own life it got so dark. Anxiety began to increase. I started to become fragile, broken down, in a state that was no longer resilient to basic stress, or able to function.
But once I found a way to liberate myself from my own overthinking, I felt a sense of control again and I knew recovery would be an option for me again and would be theoretically a chance, or possible.
I’ve had to identify what works for me and what doesn’t, and take that really seriously. I’ve had to not ignore but pay attention to all my thoughts and feelings, and try to understand why I have them, and then rationally find a better way to think- a better way to approach whatever it is that’s negative. Simple solutions. Lead to solving the bigger problems that once seemed unsolvable- with ease.
You think, you don’t have all the tools, there’s no way. You’re too far behind now, you’re too damaged, too much has gone wrong and now you’ve missed the window to fix things. But no that’s not true.
