goodby meds and a stock take

[jamesG.1]

Greetings

3 weeks in to the final stoppage of my meds. I staged down from 5 to 2.5mg 2 months ago and am now off altogether. Med was escitalopram or Lexapro.

So, 1 week to go.

It's not easy, I'll tell you that. But it is utterly worth it. It's a simple balancing act tho, suicidal vs zombie, that's why I went on them. I  chose to resemble a teenage boy for a year rather than leap of a roof and into a dumpster. But all good at the times have to end. They removed my creativity, focus, sex drive, energy and much much more and they left me half way to junkie and they had to go. So, off I went. But the down side has been nightmares, brain zaps, panic attacks etc. But the good side has been the good side of adrenalin, cortisol and occasionally testosterone, returning focus and enough ummph to get a few things rolling again.

But the return of feeling does mean that you have to start facing some demons and as a result, I've been facing mine. For those that remember, I was dealing with 4 mainly separate narcs (of varying style) and have now nearly got to none, my business partner being the last problem person to manage. My biggest returning emotions have been about my alcoholic ex and that usually takes the form of a conflict between my memory of her before she drank and the monster she eventually became. You leave the monster, but you feel you've deserted the person you loved. It's a horrible mind game on yourself, because you swing wildly from one to the other, especially in the small hours or when you remember happier times. And you do remember them. The only way to combat that is to then remeber the bad stuff. The threats, the shambling mess that sleeps all day and reeks of vodka at 9 in the morning and who screams at you for calling an ambulance when she rips her foot open on a floorboard. The gaslighting that fries your head, the desertion when you need love and support because you are trying to fend of your insane, cruel brother while your mother is dying. The sheer lack of affection, the controlling, money-obsessed misery that lurks in the basement, playing microsoft excel like a piano, taking my money and hiding hers.

This is what I have to use to fend off the feelings of shame and guilt for leaving to save myself. I'm a kind empathic person and it went against every fibre of my being but I was certain that had I stayed, I would have had far, far worse. As it is, the damage done to my poor prefrontal cortex is enough.

So that's the bit that has come back fiercely and is proving a challenge to manage.

But it has to be done.

The other big pain is the way that my recovering stamina and focus comes and goes as I heal. Generally it's good, but it is a very flat kind of upswing and I am still hard-pressed by certain tasks. Right now I'm struggling with work a lot, and there are a few dozen amazingly useful this I could be doing that I just can't make work, at least in an on-demand sense. This really drives me ape and can make me panic horribly if I feel I'm drifting. I just can't afford to frift, soi there's that, but it's an identity thing with me. I have to get back to my driven, creative self to feel I've found myself again.

I can sort of taste it, and see it now. So it's a big deal when it feels like its back peddling on me.

sigh.

I can do it. It's the old big lesson of C-PTSD... BE GOOD TO YOURSELF. I have to roll with another set of punches and be patient. You can't face down this process, you have to leave it to heal, keep the bandage on until long after you think it should come off. Another year of healing? So what. Make it work for you, adjust your expectations and make getting well bigger than any other ambition. And it is your decision, your pace, your needs that matter. Most of you, if not all, will recognise what I mean when I say that my life was hijacked and taken for a ride, that my motivation, my desire, my morality and my ambition were all mangled and controlled in a ways that mean that even now, I have trouble identifying myself amongst my thoughts and feelings.

It takes a lot of work to unravel these things. It takes bravery and persistence, but it HAS to be done.

Be kind and be good to yourself folks, it really is time you were.