Medication
Earlier this year I started taking anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication. I had put off doing so for many years because of the bad experiences of some people close to me on various medications. However, my therapist assured me that some of the newer medications did not have the same awful side effects and that if I did experience prolonged negative side effects I could always go off the medication and be no worse off that I was before. I was at a crisis point in my life, where my depression and anxiety had become too difficult to manage on my own so I finally gave it a try. After two terrible weeks of the initial side effects, the medication worked. I was good. I stopped have panic attacks and only had infrequent and short periods of depression, rather than the weeks on end depressions I'd had before. Aside from that I finally knew what it was like to feel normal.
Being on medication didn't put me in a fog, or send me to euphoric heights of bliss. It just let me live my life. I still experience the normal ups and downs of day to day living, but now the downs are manageable. Prior to medication things like calling people, filling out forms, and getting out of bed could take on the appearance of an terrifying monster. I could be paralyzed by the simplest tasks.
I know that medication isn't for everyone. I know some people never get over the initial bad side-effects. I've had friends who've had success with natural remedies, exercise and therapy alone, but for me medication was the missing piece. I had done a lot of the grunt work on myself already. I'd worked on changing my thinking patterns, changing my lifestyle and finding useful work to do. I think that unless you do these things, no amount of medication will bring the change you desire. However, even with all the grunt work done, I could still be paralyzed by depression and anxiety and everything was much harder for me than it needed to be. Medication made my life easier to live. I still have to do the work of living it, but it's simpler now.
I'm putting this out there because I wish someone had told me this during the years I was not on medication. Maybe it would not have changed things, but it might have put things in better perspective for me. Maybe I would have seen that life didn't have to be so hard.
Being on medication didn't put me in a fog, or send me to euphoric heights of bliss. It just let me live my life. I still experience the normal ups and downs of day to day living, but now the downs are manageable. Prior to medication things like calling people, filling out forms, and getting out of bed could take on the appearance of an terrifying monster. I could be paralyzed by the simplest tasks.
I know that medication isn't for everyone. I know some people never get over the initial bad side-effects. I've had friends who've had success with natural remedies, exercise and therapy alone, but for me medication was the missing piece. I had done a lot of the grunt work on myself already. I'd worked on changing my thinking patterns, changing my lifestyle and finding useful work to do. I think that unless you do these things, no amount of medication will bring the change you desire. However, even with all the grunt work done, I could still be paralyzed by depression and anxiety and everything was much harder for me than it needed to be. Medication made my life easier to live. I still have to do the work of living it, but it's simpler now.
I'm putting this out there because I wish someone had told me this during the years I was not on medication. Maybe it would not have changed things, but it might have put things in better perspective for me. Maybe I would have seen that life didn't have to be so hard.
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