WTF Meds are HARD, This Journey is HARDER, Finding "Normal" is HARDEST

I haven’t really figured out the purpose of this medicine yet, if it is to make me feel like dirt and cry all the time then it is doing its job, but I would rather be unpredictably up and down than continue to be stuck down and always feel like I am barely surviving through the day.

Side Effects Include:

-Extreme Headaches

-Dizziness

-Nausea

-Upset Stomach

-Lack of Appetite

-Stopping Eating except a few bites to take medicine

-Muscle Aches

-Uncontrollable Heart Rate when Exercising

-Disoriented

-Extreme Fatigue

-Lack of Interest in Things I Love

-Excessive Vivid Dreams

-NEW* Night Terrors

Nine weeks into treatment and I can’t imagine how I had to feel before to endure this shit. Honestly, I don’t want to. I fought the urge to drive to the mountains last Wednesday and find the highest peak I could. A beautiful drive and the hope of finding everlasting peace, was almost more than I could fight the steering wheel for. I am having a really hard time with this and honestly I am ready to give up. I am ready to be done, either take me off the medication and let me be unpredictable or just let me die. This f***ing medicine balance act is torture.

You may think I am exaggerating a bit, and that is okay, you have the right to that opinion, but I do ask that you don’t judge these shoes until you have walked a mile in them. At this point, on most days, I am merely doing this for all those people that reach out to me so often because they would obviously be devastated if I died. My will to live slips further and further each day as I lose sight of any kind of hope for ever being better. I want to be better. I want to have this disease in my hip pocket and say, “Look here bitch, I run this damn show,” but right now, the Brain Demon is proving me oh so wrong.

Monday was the first good day I had in 20 days…. I keep a mood tracker so I can better explain how long I am stuck in the hole. For 20 days straight I was indifferent or sad, there were no bright days. Monday was the first. It was like the most needed sprinkle of sunshine I have ever had. Reminder that good days do happen. The Brain Demon wants to say, “But every 20 days? Who wants to live that way?” I get it. I don’t know if one good day every 20 is worth it, it feels like watching a horse with a broken leg suffer for three weeks before deciding to put it down. I can only hope they get better and more frequent, but from others I have talked to, they are mostly just flat or indifferent. I pray that that is not true. I really pray there is hope, but if there isn’t light soon, I don’t know how much more I can hang on to this journey.

I do believe God only gives struggles like this to people who can handle them, but it still doesn’t mean I understand why or don’t resent this journey a little bit. I know one day I will be thankful for this journey because I will be able to share it and help others and be understanding, but getting there is like climbing Mount Everest and every time we get to base camp a f***ing avalanche sweeps us down to an even lower level. That every week I should be getting better and every week I am getting worse, is starting to take a toll on my positive thinking. It is literally a struggle to see the sun for the clouds on a daily basis. If I notice the sun shining or the birds chirping or the sunrise or the the leaves changing, that day is a win because there was at least some positivity included in it.

I have something most people do not have and that I did not have had this happened a year ago, and that is a strong support system. I not only have my family, I have the most bestest ( I dont give a shit about proper English in this blog OBVIOUSLY) friends anyone on this planet could ever ask for! I have a strong will to live, somewhere hidden amongst all the mud I am wading through at the moment, and I have the heart of fighter that never gives up.

I am trying to learn new ways of looking at the everyday. I know I haven’t always looked at them like this. I know right now my mind is completely out of control and I can't help find control for it, it is lost, and that is okay, but staying in the negative bubble is not. I have a hard time even remembering what I was like before the medication. My mom says I had a normal and I have not one freaking clue what that is. Will I know if it comes back? Hell will it come back? (Again that’s negative and negative is bad.) I am trying to find what my new “normal” is and how not to settle for something less than I can have. Contrary to even my belief before this, you don’t just take medicine and get better with mental illness, you get medicine and you become a different person so you learn how to become the person you want to be while trying to deal with losing your old self due to medicine. I can’t tell you how many times I have said in the past almost 10 weeks that I just want to back up and not do this. I don’t want to be on this medication anymore. I feel even more unstable on the medication than I did off.

I can say that this has been very humbling. You think you have control of your life and you can do this shit on your own, and God shows you real damn quick you are not the creator of this game. I’ve been through quite a few different scenarios in my life I didn’t understand that now in hindsight make me feel like the biggest asshole in the world because it was medication and sometimes medication mixed with substances that made people monsters, not them. You think you’re on top of the world and can conquer anything you put your mind to and depression comes in and sweeps that rug right from under your feet and you land flat on your ass… with the wind knocked out of you.

I can say that externally, and holistically, I am doing all the things I am in control of to make this journey supposedly “better”. I have to think there is a better way to treat mental illness than just medicine and exercise. I do also eat very healthy and have taken out the trigger foods like sugar and dairy except on occasion, which I pay for by not being able to sleep. I have added meditation and yoga back into my weekly routine to accomplish at least twice a week (baby steps here), I have created a more routine work schedule so I am not always all over the place and never on some kind of regime, I have a workout plan to feed the endorphin piranhas every morning around the same time everyday so hopefully getting through the days will be easier when the monkeys are in their cages. I go to all of my doctor’s appointments, counseling appointments, check in with my close circle when I am not okay, I am doing all this shit right!!!!..... And it is like none of that matters, my brain is rogue and on it’s own path of trying to kill me from the inside out.

To sum up this randomly assorted post, I did figure out today that Ironman may always have my heart, he is not the superhero that resonates with me the most and must move to the passenger seat. The Big Guy, Incredible Hulk is more of what I think should be my favorite superhero. No, not because he can “Hulk Smash” thought it would be nice sometimes, but because of who he is when he is not the Hulk. He is Dr. Banner, a normal average Joe, very intelligent, introverted, minimalistic, and isolated. He has a beast trapped inside of him and his everyday task is to keep the beast contained inside, without showing signs of weakness. His daily tasks require him to practice ways to contain the monster and finding ways to avoid triggers. Though Dr. Banner is very good at containing the Hulk usually, there are still moments though despite his greatest efforts, the beast still explodes and he becomes something he himself is terrified of. He does learn how to better manage the Hulk and use him for good in the end, so I have decided to look at my journey as being Dr. Banner with a humongous beast inside that I can use for good once I learn how to contain in a form that is the right way for ME!

Sum it all up…. I am the Incredible Hulk….. The end. :)

Our Story ;sn’t Over

P<3