Storms of Life

For at least the last seven years, I have been on one form of medication or another.  Hydrocodone, prednisone, methatrexate, sinus sprays, sinus medications (over the counter and prescription), at least five different antidepressants, a mood stabilizer, an anti-psychotic, an anti-anxiety medication, hormonal drugs, high blood pressure medication, insomnia medications, and vitamins of all sorts.  From July of 2014 until recently there were times I was on all of those at the same time.  We should, for intellectual honesty, also mention the "self medicating" I have done.

I can honestly say that for the first time in seven years, the only "drug" I am on is an Over 40 Women's Multi-Vitamin and today is my 11 day celebration.

I have been diagnosed with so many things but in the last 3 years, a major depressive episode resulting in a Bi-Polar II diagnosis.  I had a major depressive episode - was diagnosed and then drugged up.  I am not blaming anyone.  The professionals I saw did what they knew and thought was right.  I have been diagnosed by non-professionals with Border Line Personality Disorder and other "ugly" sounding things as well.

I honestly do not know if I have a mental disorder, am pissed off or just spent so much time wrapped up in being perfect and proving myself and then on so many medications that it all looked like something that it wasn't or isn't.

Did you know that the side effects of prednisone can mimic so many mental disorders? Then add in other drugs and the "cocktail" can become something it isn't.

The point of my "detox" is not to do anything other than determine a baseline.  For the first time in my life I really only have me to worry about.  Not that I don't worry about everyone else in my life, but my obligations are limited right now to me.  I have to figure out what is going on and why and I can't do that if I am forever on some "mood altering" drug.  Medications are good and necessary but a life altering event or events can mask what is really wrong and the wrong combination of medications can mask it even further (and we will leave talking about the realtional side effects of all that for another post).

So the journey down the path to finding out my life, past and present, has been started.  I'm fully detoxed from all the drugs/prescriptions and will put one foot in front of the other to find out who I am with a clear head.  If, in that process it is determined I need a medication I won't resist, it just has to be the right one and for the right diagnosis.

I have been labeled since conception.  This time if I get a label it will be because I pulled up my boot straps and figured it out instead of using everyone and everything as a crutch.

Two years...or longer?

Today is two years since life was forever altered and almost three years since the downward spiral of my life and marriage.  I’m not sure how I feel about it as I sit here today.  I don’t know exactly how it changed me.  Do the good changes outweigh the bad changes?  What if anything did I learn from it and if I did learn something was it productive or destructive.  Maybe both.  I spent last night reading journals of my interpretation of what was happening in my life.  I can’t say I was an active participant.  I was alone, emotionally and physically.  I was scared.  I was drugged out.  I had binges of anger.  I had binges of paranoia.  I had to write things down to remember them and to this moment I do not know how much of what I wrote was accurate or what my damaged mind interpreted it too.  I have essentially spent the last three years in a downward spiral in which my family and friends could not be around me.  They could not accept me.  They tried so hard to love me but they couldn’t and I made it harder for them to do and be all those things I needed.  Those who could give, couldn’t give enough.  I had damaged my world and my loved ones in a way that damaged who I was and who everyone thought I was. 

Somedays I am very angry over the entire scene.  No one sought help for me.  Oh I was told “you need medication”; “you need therapy”; “you need to eat”; “you need to sleep” and so on and so on.  However, no one actually intervened.  At one point I lost 25 pounds in 4 weeks; had slept about 15 hours in that 4 weeks and was on 9 different medications, many of which were counter-indicated to each other.  I had not stopped crying, crying hysterically for any length of time.  No one in my life saw the destruction to me that was happening and did anything.  There was no intervention.  No push for help.  No picking me up off the floor and seeking a way to help me. 

I am also sad about this.  Was I not worth the help?  Did I damage everyone around me so badly that not one person could help me in a medical, psychological or loving way?  How did the damage I suffered throughout my life put me to the point where no one could help me?  What would it have taken for my friends and family to load me in a car and have me checked out and in with professionals who could help me and maybe help them? 

Words…words and more words.  Words did not help me.  Questions.  Why did it get to the point where it was easier to walk away then deal with the issues?  Why were phrases like “I need to find myself”; “We are not where I thought we would be at this point in life”; “You have ruined relationships.”; “I don’t need to tell you anything.”; “I never know what you I am going to get on any given day”; easier to say than to help me?  How many times did I help others in my family?  How many times did I hold it all up and together for everyone around me?  Why were my failings so hard on me and everyone?  Is there an answer or did the world just fracture too much this time for anyone to hold it together? 

So much wrong and all the right went away.  I tried so hard to not see the world that way.  Every fault and failing and mistake, regardless of whose, I would rage against and get angry but eventually I accepted and took the apology and recognized the supposed shame and tried to heal myself and those around me because I believed, well no to a certain extent, I still believe, that someday if I ever needed it, those in my life could hold me together; be my glue; would rage against me but try and help me heal and accept and love me still.  I believed. 

Two years of wondering; of fighting; of screaming; of raging; of not getting “IT”  I  wonder if any of it is mine to get?  I wonder if this was the plan all along.  Not of his and not of mine but of the universe. 

I have to learn, again, that I am my own glue.  That I have to hold myself together.  I have to admit what I can’t handle.  I have to accept that there are a great many things that are not “mine” to handle.  I have to love me.  That I am responsible for me.  I cannot correct the past or the wrongs done by me and too me.  I can try to atone for them by being the Me I know I can be and the Me I want to be.  I can’t force anyone to forgive; to love me; to support me; to hold me together.  I can only be and accept that those in my life have to now be responsible to themselves as well and not to me and I have to be responsible to me so when I need to be there I can.