I recently wrote about coming off my medication after over 5 years on antidepressants. The two months have been mostly good. But this weekend I’ve struggled.
This post, as per the last year or two, was written a few days ago, in the moment. I am doing much better now and sharing this at a time that I am happy with and at a time when I have a certain level of distance from the moment.
I hope that in continuing to share these difficult moments/ days I am able to show recovery isn't easy, linear, simple, definitive (for me). It's ok the have crap days, and while I do still have them, they continue to be less frequent and less intense.
If you struggle with similar thinking please consider contacting or looking at resources from your local Mind, Samaritans, Heads Together or other similar charities.
Antidepressants were once described to me as bandages, they aren’t changing anything. Just holding things together.
I’ve worried I’m missing that at the moment. I’ve noticed those damaged wounds reopen, I’ve felt myself losing that stability, that bandage holding me together. I’ve felt myself ripping at the seams. The emotion falling out, pushes out of my body to make way for the sadness. The sadness that has again started to find a grip on my sole.
I’ve found covid conversations harder to manage, as we all work out our own acceptable actions and seemingly there are so many differences and variations.
I’ve found thoughts of wedding days difficult to process, it has again brought up thoughts of failure, stupidity and worthlessness.
I know these moments will pass. But right now... right now I’m distracting myself from those dark thoughts, from that growing sadness.
I fear that just as I’ve grown to feel ‘at home’ with ‘night/ dark mode’ on my phone, so have I grown to know only dark mode with my mind.
For now I feel sustained, the old dressings hold my body together. Each episode of struggle a reminder that I am as I am. I am damaged, I am wounded, I have felt trauma.
As it’s taken me time to realise that, it’s also given the wound time to settle and infect my thinking, my values and my being.
My desire and efforts to be upbeat feel... mislaid. They seem somehow out of view, as if nearby and yet of of reach and sight.
While I’m sure they will return. I’m equally sure, I will not know how I found them again or where they were.
It seems I am destined to re-search for the same inspiration a few more times yet.