Tag: stress

A Quiet Milestone

September 1, 2020 marks the official date when I became medication-free.

Having been diagnosed with depression and anxiety as a teenager, I have been taking some form of mood stabilizer for basically 12 years. The exception to that was when I was off medication for almost a year in 2013-2014, but needed to start taking it again. For the last several months now I have been feeling I reached a point where I no longer need drugs, so with the guidance of my doctor I have been weaning myself off my mood stabilizer. I took my last dose on August 31, 2020.

A combination of life experience, therapy, and personal growth I believe has led me to this milestone. I will not say I’m exactly “happy” all the time, but I do feel safe, and content, and strong. And when that’s not the case I have systems in place for taking care of myself and remedying the issue at hand. I still experience stress (and have had a lot of challenges this year), but I no longer feel crushed by my circumstances. I have the power to keep myself safe and healthy, and I’m immensely grateful for that.

This feels like a bit of strange thing to announce, and I’m definitely not as vocal about it as I was, say, when I finished paying off my student loans – I guess because to announce no longer taking medication is also announcing I was taking it in the first place. I am not anti-medicine, especially since I have first-hand experience on how beneficial it can be in keeping one well. But in my specific situation the medicine has served its purpose and I no longer need it. And after years of that not being the case, it feels pretty good.

On Solitude

I find it interesting that when I want to have an angry outburst there is no one to outburst to. The stressors of work, fatigue, hunger, anything that puts me on edge and causes me to want to express that frustration to someone – no one is there. It is then that I realize I am my own family unit. I am my own spouse, my own parent, my own child. Because those family roles have not materialized in front of me I become them to myself. I need to be self-sufficient, my own source of self-soothing and nurture because I don’t have the safety net of the nuclear family to fall back on. I am my own nuclear family. 

Really it’s a mercy I have no one to take my anger out on, because then the issue can come to an abrupt halt with just me, and no one else has to suffer for it. Perhaps you can call it the high road, the transcendent path that leads me to my most enlightened self. I hate it and love it at the same time. My solitary state has prevented the suffering of others and forced me to come to terms with my own suffering, and to take responsibility for my own healing. Oh it hurts. And I hope it’s not all meaningless.