On Medication.

I have been thinking a lot lately about what motivates my own behavior. I think of myself as being a fairly introspective person, but part of being treated for anxiety and depression is learning how to turn off some of the cyclical thinking pattern of doom that generally accompanies my thinking very deeply about anything in life.

I’ve been on anti-depressants of one sort of another for just over a year now. For the most part, I’ve found that they do help me. I’m not completely surprised that they do, of course. I do have a masters degree in Social Work, so I understand (at least a little) of what mental illness is all about. I had no doubt that I had a chemical imbalance in my brain, one most likely guided by the genetic pattern which has created this same imbalance in so many of my family members’ brains, and that more was needed than just some exercise and good old fashion sunshine.

At the same time, no one likes to admit that there’s something wrong with their brain. Tell someone they have diabetes and they will grieve, but eventually they will adjust. There is no shame in carting around the sort of pancreas which struggles to regulate the body’s supply of insulin. But there is inherent shame in being born with the sort of brain that just doesn’t seem capable of balancing the various chemicals that slosh around the body controlling mood and behavior.

I have done fairly well adjusting to the fact that I need this medication. There are moments when it’s embarrassing to me. Sometimes someone at church will make a comment, for example, something along the lines of: “Well, if people spent more time with Jesus instead of focusing on the world, they wouldn’t need all that medication to get through the day!” Well, maybe, but few of these same people, if afflicted by diabetes, would throw away their insulin pens and try to pray away their chemical imbalances.

I don’t mean to pick on the church, of course. There is a general societal misunderstanding about mental illness. A friend was recently complaining about a co-worker. He said: “She’s crazy! No seriously, she’s on like medication for it!” This was, of course, accompanied by the giant whooshing sound of his foot going straight into his mouth. “I didn’t mean it like that.” Well, yes and no, my friend! You didn’t mean to hurt my feelings, no; but, you did intend to clearly demarcate the normals from the crazies and, unfortunately, by virtue of needing medication I apparently end up in the latter camp of people who are less worthy.

Then, at other times, I’ve found myself peddling the wonders of medication to anyone who will listen. Like most people who find their lives very suddenly improved by something, I’ve found myself advertising it to people I never thought I would discuss such things with. No doubt, some of these people would do well to talk to their doctors. Some of these people, however, I barely even know. It isn’t the Social Worker in me that’s pushing medication. I think that it’s the part of me that wants to share how I am handling this disability I was born with. For reasons both selfless and selfish, I want it to be known that I am overcoming this disease and show others how I have won the battles that I have managed to win so far.

At the same time, I am well-aware of the limitations of medication. Medication does not solve any of life’s problems: it doesn’t tell you the meaning of life; it won’t convince you that your life is well worth living. Being on the wrong medication can actually give you a hard kick in the direction of deciding that it isn’t worth living at all. The wrong medication carries with it the additional misery of unpleasant side effects, both mental and physical, that may tip the balance for a person who is already so burdened that they feel they have no further strength to carry on.

On its best day, when you are on a well-suited medication at a proper dosage, you wake up feeling like what I imagine normal people feel like. Life is not without tension, but this tension seems manageable. You may not want to get out of bed, but this is because you’re tired and not because you feel you’re under siege. You may still lose your temper or have your feelings hurt, but the emotions are merely your emotions and you are not at their mercy. A disappointment is merely a disappointment and not potentially fatal tragedy. You can remember a time when you were happy; it doesn’t seem impossible to reach that state again.

In other words, medication can’t, and won’t, fix all of your problems for you. It can, however, help to level the playing field a little. You get the start the daily race where everyone else gets to start the race instead of several miles behind, with a ball and chain weighing down your feet.

Mental illness will be a lifelong struggle for me. The body tends to adjust to medication in ways that make them less efficacious over time. Thus, I now know that I will spend the rest of my life monitoring my moods. When a bad day turns into a bad week, and a bad week turns into a bad month, it may well be that I don’t need a vacation away from it all. I simply need to have my medication adjusted. Of course, sometimes a bad day is still a bad day and a bad week is still just a bad week. Being sensitive to these issues is part of my new awareness.

The good news is that I no longer have to be afraid of thinking. For much of my life too much deep thinking has generally left me feeling empty and helpless. This is not to say, of course, that I’m a shallow person. Rather than give up the deep thinking, I have generally sacrificed the happiness. I used to chalk it up to my sense of Stoicism: life isn’t supposed to be easy. Now I realize that every day living is also not supposed to resemble the Batan Death March.

This past week has been a difficult one. I am in the midst of a change of medication and my personal life has been, due to unrelated issues, completely chaotic. The good news is that these circumstances do not last forever. Tomorrow is another day, next week another week. Whatever the present state of darkness, it is only a matter of time before the sun rises again.