Is this the end? I don’t know. Everyday my outlook gets
bleaker and bleaker. The meds no longer have enough of an effect to keep me in
a good state of mind, let alone a normal, functioning adult. Having suffered
with mental illness from the time of a child, I’ve been subjected to the full
assortment of pharmacological remedies. Going from doctor to doctor in search
of a cure to my mental malady made switching medications something of a regular
occurrence. Each psychiatrist seemingly had their own go-to drug for success
which they invariably ended up prescribing for their patients. That these MD’s
also happened to be receiving large kickbacks from the pharmaceutical companies
surely had nothing to do with the preference for one drug over another. Right?
While I ate at this buffet of medication for a large chunk
of my youth I think it’d be more prudent to begin at my current predicament
with a little relevant history sprinkled in for perspective. Considering the pivotal role that medical
drugs have played in my past and present mental health, it’s a good place to
start.
Following many short stints on the various drugs popularly
prescribed for depression and anxiety, I eventually found success with Effexor.
During the first years of use, I enjoyed the full range of positive effects it
had to offer. My mood was lifted, anxiety and depressive thoughts receded, and
perhaps most importantly it supplied a sorely lacking desire to engage with
other people and join society. During the height of its effectiveness I was
able to lead a functional productive life. Since it’s often difficult for me to
reminisce on the good experiences in my past minus the bad, I tend to forget
how great things were during this period. With the success of Effexor at
keeping my depression in check in addition to providing those behavioral
aspects missing from my psyche, I was free to partake of the (relatively)
normal existence that had always been so elusive until then. Naturally, it was
only a matter of time before my mental health issues resurfaced anew.
Effexor, which in the beginning had had a noticeable effect
on my mood, soon began to lose its potency as my body built up a tolerance to
its presence. Currently, it has no overt impact on my mood but rather serves to
keep me on an even keel. Or at least that’s the theory, because the truth is
that Effexor turned out to have such severe withdrawal symptoms that it’s essentially
impossible to get off of.
I once attempted to
wean myself off of it in favor of more proactive medication; but this action
quickly gave rise to a severe depression blacker than I could have imagined. What
I remember most acutely from this terrible time was being incapable of
diverting my mind, for even an instant, away from the misery I was experiencing.
Television, reading, video games and all the other menial activities that once
counted among my leisure time activities could in no way capture my focus.
All the various activities that fill a person’s waking time,
those menial everyday tasks done so frequently that you’re no longer even
conscious of them. It’s second nature to brush your teeth, engage in conversation
or enjoy a movie but each of these examples serve as a mechanism for passing
time. They give the mind something to latch itself onto, even if only at a near
unconscious level, and thereby distort our awareness from moment to moment. Without
the ability to engage my attention in mundane, everyday activities made it
impossible to escape from under the mountain of misery that was my regular
mindset. To be trapped in the constant awareness of the moment, without the
illusion of time quickly speeding by, is an agonizing experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment