AN ADDENDUM

OK, I Have been considering something that I wrote earlier and feel like I need to clarify my statement. I was being irresponsible and I want to explain myself in case someone who doesn’t know me stumbles upon my tiny little blog and takes what I said the wrong way.

I have been telling you guys about the medicine I’m on for my panic attacks, and how I don’t like it.  I don’t like it, but the thing is, I need it. I need it and it works.

A very large part of my problem with taking the medication is that it takes control of my feelings out of my hands. I have said for years that I don’t like to feel feelings and that is only partly true. What I actually want to be able to do is have control over my feelings so that I don’t cry in public, or get my feelings hurt so easily, or any of the other millions of unpleasant things that happen because we have human emotions. The issue is that when left to my own devices, I feel too many things and it’s hard to control. I’m an emotional person and I always have been. I’m prone to going into some pretty deep depressions, just like a lot of other people do. My feelings are easily hurt, I get disappointed because sometimes I expect too much and things don’t turn out the way I hoped, and I sometimes get crushing, achingly lonely. Thing is, I think most people feel like I do, only instead of taking it in stride as part of the human condition, it can feel to me like a weakness. I know I don’t have control over much in this life, so my desire to control my feelings is one of those things I reach for and unfortunately, it isn’t a skill I’m good at.  I mostly try to hide that part of me by dealing with my shit outside of the public eye, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel things. I’m a big, squishy marshmallow of a person when I wish I was more of a rock, ya know?

So, enter the panic attacks. If you want to know what it’s like not to have control over anything in your own brain, please have a panic attack. It’s literally as if every fear, every emotion, every bad thing that might happen piles up on top of you and tries to smother you. You can’t breathe, you can’t think, you can’t control your body’s reactions...it sucks. A lot of people see them as being the product of a weak person, but in reality, chronic anxiety attacks are a weird brain chemical thing. My grandmother had them, and unfortunately that was one of the prizes I got in the family genetic lottery.  Personally, I’d have rather gotten blue eyes, but I had no say in the matter. She was on primitive medication to control her anxiety for longer than I’ve been alive, and she handled it.

I have to be on my own medication so that I can function. Do I like it, absolutely not. There are side effects that I hate. Instead of having too many emotions, I currently have this fairly level baseline that can occasionally be disrupted either in good ways or bad ways. Instead of having a whole palette of colorful, vivid emotions, I now have a few muted colors that I can mix and match to paint my life with and for a person like me, that isn’t what I prefer. I want the colors and textures and all of that, but I want to be in complete control of the picture that I paint. The physical effects the medicine has on me sucks. The inability to focus sucks. Gaining weight sucks. Feeling like things and people that I know are very, very, very important to me are fading or faraway SUCKS. Not having a normal brain sucks the worst.

All that being said, here is why I’m writing this...(finally, heh.)

Sometimes we need a little help. Chances are, I won’t be on this medication for the rest of my life.  There are a million things that can effect your brain chemicals, and maybe mine are just temporarily out of whack. These meds aren’t ruining my life. They are a small inconvenience. I don’t want anyone to read the things I write about being on medication for my issues and think that it’s too scary to get help if they need it. I don’t want someone who might be depressed, or who has anxiety, or any number of other things not to get help because the idea of being on medication for a mental illness, or a temporary (or not so temporary) depression isn’t worth it. If you need help, please go and get it. Side effects are unpleasant, but so are violent anxiety attacks and deep, deep depressions.  Sure, you can diet and exercise and distract yourself in lots of ways, and if that works for you, trust me, I’m thrilled for you. But sometimes a person needs more than that, and if you find that all of the other stuff doesn’t work and you are miserable, please bite the bullet and go see a doctor. You may only need to talk to someone impartial to your life and medication won’t be necessary, but if you do need to take something, it isn’t a weakness.

Now, does this mean I’m going to stop bitching about the side effects of my medicine? Absolutely not! Haha! Talking about what it is doing to me helps me to deal with it. However, it might not effect you or anyone else in the same way, so don’t take my bitching about it as a sign that you shouldn’t take your own meds if you really need them.

If you need help, please go and get it. Live your best life, even if that means you have to take a detour now and again with therapy or medication to reach it.