Above The Water
I guess I'm officially On Medication now.I don't know why that's so hard for me to swallow (pardon the pun). But I'm absolutely determined not to make it my dirty little secret. There are *so* many people who take pills to deal with depression, and I think we do a real disservice to ALL of them by not talking about it more. People take anti-inflammatories for arthritis. People have chemo for cancer. Depression is a disease too, so why is it such a bad thing to treat it?
ANYway. (Climbing off my soapbox now.)
I think I was doing a decent job at functioning without them, but it was FREAKING HARD - and I was just barely keeping my head above water most days (the other days I was drowning). I don't think the change is miraculous by any means, I just feel a little bit more like myself than I have in a long time. I'm not sure why I waited so long. I think I just needed to be ready, to make peace with the idea that I wasn't able to be a good wife + a good mom + a good writer + a good daughter/sister/friend/etc on my own. And I'm slowly becoming okay with that as I realize that it's not anything I did or didn't do - I'm just a little bit broken.
Yesterday was kind of a profound day for me. It just felt DIFFERENT. It was a perfectly ordinary day, except that I felt like a different kind of wife + mom than I have been. It felt like I actually made some progress during the day instead of slipping farther and farther behind. I was still tired, and it was still a tough day, but I felt PRESENT. And that's maybe the best Christmas gift I could have asked for - for me AND for Geoff + Briony.
Ugh. That pun was worse than the first ;)
Labels: Happy Thoughts, In The Moment, Married Stuff, Mommy Stuff
posted by Lindsay @ 6:25 PM
6 Comments:
No worries - it's what gets lots of us through tough times. Can I email you?
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I think those of us who take "Happy Pills" have to make peace with their presence in our lives in our way and our own time. Life is so much more do-able with our heads above water than spewing and sputtering half-way under. I'm glad.
Good for you Lindsay. Depression is a big, big, big scary monster that runs in my family. But what really are the scary monsters, are the people in my family who forget to take their pills, rather than the pills themselves.
As you say, there are people who take many different kinds of medication. Heck even tylenol to take away a headache. Why would a person not take a pill to help with a chemical imbalance that they suffer from? It's not their fault they have it. It is a REAL problem, and not one to just push aside.
Although I've never had depression (knock on wood, because a large portion of my family are on meds), I have had issues with anxiety. So I know what it's like to feel a little out of control & over-stressed when you're used to having your game on.
So good on you for doing what's good for you! You will be a much happier, well adjusted person for it.
go lindsay! ~ you are fabulous!
Thank you so much for being so brave to speak so openly about this! Glad to hear that you feel a bit better!
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