To Medicate or Not To Medicate

I have to say I do find it terribly ironic that my last post was about cultivating confidence and this one is about my” feeling” anything but that. However accordingly to the very academic book I am reading” The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck”

“the true measure of self worth is not how a person feels about her positive expericences, but rather how she feels about her negative experiences”

And believe you me things have been feeling pretty negative in the mind al la Jena.

The thing is that I am not any less confident, despite this ” feeling” because I am not my feelings and luckily neither are you.

Feelings are merely our signals to something brewing beneath the surface, this can be something wonderful that makes us FEEL excited or anxious in the best imaginable way

…or…

it can be a sign that something isn’t right. Which is my current predicament.

For a while now I have felt uneasy. Honestly I feel like a part of me went missing somewhere and I am terribly afraid I wont find it and worse yet that no one notices its gone, no one that is but me.

I feel so deeply and so often and this triggered internal inventory.

I have depression, I have anxiety, I have unimaginable grief and the holiday season approaching amplifies this like nobodies business.

A few years ago a I was diagnosed with depression and I was told I needed medication. Like most people I didn’t want it. The thought of being a 20 something year old (at the time) and having people find out I was the emotionally and mentally defective girl that needed meds was not appealing to me, not even as I romanticized the tormented artist aesthetic.

I feared what people would think of me, I thought about how I had thought before I was the girl being told she needed mood stabilizers. I thought of that term “Mood Stabilizers” and how awful it sounds.

So I opted out. I worked out and changed my diet, went to bed early and you know what? it worked… for a while and then it didn’t.

I got on medication and at first I didn’t think it did anything but my friends and family would beg to differ. The thing is I didn’t really think about it , which means it was working. I wasn’t trapped in my feelings.

Don’t get me wrong emotions are good, cleansing and healing but for some, like myself they can also hold you prisoner. they can keep you for longer than they need and carry over to uninvited places.

they can be well… unstable… and you may need, you guessed it, mood stabilizers.

As life would have it I would loose my medical and hence loose my medication. I once again did it on my own and I did better this time. I educated myself and learned more about MY body. I got a life coach, used CBD started taking yoga and even got into crystals and angel cards and it worked… for a while.

The past two weeks have been hard. I’ve done all my normal activities, gone to work, been a friend, a helpful grand daughter, cleaned my house, worked out, made jokes, smiled been Jena, but I wasn't .

I have functioning depression which means I can do all the I normally do, but on the inside I’m hallow. I thought it would pass, thought that I was passed this, but my depression like my grief is not something I will ever get over but rather learn to live with. This too is apart of my wellness journey and I think its a part we don’t talk enough about, that there are, at times parts of us that never “heal” that never go away, that will always come up and it doesn’t make us unwell, or failures. It makes us humans it makes us forever evolving.

So after two days of fighting back tears while I smile through customer interactions (and finally receiving my medical card after a year) I called my doctor …

I will be going back on meds. Its still a little hard to say and it shouldn’t be.

That’s why I am writing now. So that maybe someone who also feels like a part of her is missing does everything in her power to get it back.

Even it that means getting on meds.

Remember you’re not doing it wrong, stubbing is apart of the process, trust me. So take them or don’t just do what makes you feel like YOU.

All my love

Jena