Posted by Gracie2 on December 25, 2002, at 20:49:16
To All-
Near the beginning of December, I posted a long letter to Psycho-Babble about my recovery. While I didn't get a lot of responses, the ones I recieved were heartfelt and gratifying.Tonight, Christmas night, it suddenly occurred to me that when I was at my lowest, every now and then I would sign on to PSB to see how everyone was doing, but I had given up on Psycho-Babble because I was convinced, by that time, that psychiatric medications would never work for me.
I gave up on myself just this last February, and swallowed all of my prescribed medications at once - over 50 pills. I guess I was thinking that I would make these drugs work for me, one way or another.But here I am, still with you, still here to offer you hope. Because I never followed links when I was seriously depressed (too much effort),
I'm just going to rewrite my "recovery letter" and edit where I can, although I probably won't be able to skip much. Here is the letter: I hope you take the time to read it, because I know it will help you. I know it.
* * * *
This website, the other posters on this website and the good Dr Bob: you've been an incredible source of support and advice for me during the last few years, and I want to give back to you all by telling you, through really hard-earned experience, what I've learned about psychiatry and psychiatric medication. I'm well on the road to recovery, I'm doing alright now, and I hope this posting will help others.Without going into a lot of gruesome detail, I was extremely ill for a very long time. I was too sick to know that I was sick, and I battled recovery every step of the way. I hit bottom not once but three times. The first time, the police
were called and they escorted me to the hospital to be committed. The second time, I was admitted to the hospital after I collapsed with seizures after an unintentional overdose. The third time, I had to have my stomach pumped after an intentional overdose, and the doctors told my husband that I might require a respirator to breathe. Fortunately I woke up before that happened, but I didn't feel fortunate. I was pretty unhappy about waking up, alive.So, you know, I was obviously in very bad shape.
Nobody thought I was going to make it, including myself. I had been under psychiatric care since my first admission, but for the next 3 years I continued to roll downhill, picking up speed as I went. There are reasons for the delay in my diagnosis and treatment, and now that I know what those reasons are, I'd like to share them with you.First, I was so confused and horrified by all the things I was doing to myself, I didn't want anyone to know. Including my psychiatrist. Also, I kept screwing around with my prescribed medications, not taking them as directed. I would "adjust" the dosage myself because I was having trouble with side effects. I would skip dosages because I wanted to drink. (While you can drink in moderation while you're taking this medication, you can't take the pills around the same time that you're actually drinking because it will make you sick.) I would insist that my psychiatrist switch medications when they didn't appear to be working, and if he refused I would order my own stuff from the internet.
I was just so sick, my judgement was so poor and my thinking so skewed, I didn't know what I was
doing. After a very long time, I began to adjust somewhat to the medication I was taking, and it was much easier to take the medication as prescribed once the side effects went away. And once I finally started taking the medication like I was supposed to do in the first place, it eventually had a chance to kick in. Good things gradually started to happen - the fog began to lift, my thinking was clearer, every day I was functioning on a higher level. My panic attacks stopped, the insomnia went away, I no longer suffered from bouts of severe depression and mania. I was able to slow way down on the self-medication with recreational drugs and alcohol.
My judgement improved, and I started to take care of myself again.So on my next visit to the psychiatrist I told him, okay, I'm taking the right medicine at the right dosage, my bipolar symptoms are either gone or getting better every day. But something still isn't right. I'm not happy, I still feel like my life sucks. I hate my job, I can't get focused,
I don't care about anything. I don't want to have fun, I don't know what to do with my life.So then the good doctor added an SSRI to my medication. By this time I was more familiar with how psychiatric medication operates in your brain, so I didn't expect immediate results and I tried not to worry about the side effects. Low and behold, after taking the anti-depressant exactly as directed for some weeks, improvement
became steady. At first, it was just a matter of not being quite so hard to get out of bed in the morning and do the things I needed to do to get through the day. Then, I started to get a little more organized so that my environment wasn't all mess and chaos. Then, I started doing things like setting appropriate goals for myself, stuff like that. Now, I'm trying to pick up the pieces of my life, all the damage I caused to other people with all my crazy bullshit. Probably most gratifying for me is the mirror image of recovery in my only child, Jake, who has been the love of my life since the day he was born. He is 21 now, still living at home, and I see now that this is because of me. Although he's had the resources and, I'm sure, the wish to move out for quite awhile now, he was unable to leave home while I was still in self-destruct mode. Now that he knows he doesn't have to worry about me anymore,
he is so much more relaxed and happy, and able to concentrate on plans for his future.
* * *
Well, I can't finish this tonight because I am late for a party. Imagine that. I haven't been to a party in many years, I had no wish to go and would have handled it poorly if I did go. Now, I believe I can not only handle it, I might even have, well....fun.I'll finish the letter tomorrow. Merry Christmas to all of you, and God bless us every one.
-Gracie
poster:Gracie2
thread:34008
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20021218/msgs/34008.html