So, I'm not sleeping much; I hear this isn't unusual. I had an incredibly defeating morning yesterday when I woke up at 6:30 to make sure I was breakfasted and dressed warmly enough (and familiar enough with directions) to get out the door and on the road to my shrink's office. I don't like saying my psychiatrist because that feels clinical, and I suppose I'm not all that fond of 'shrink' either but I feel slightly less ashamed using that word so I'mma stick with it. I had clear directions, I was out the door, I had more than enough time, and I was lost in ten minutes. I'm damn familiar with driving in Boston until I venture beyond Medford into Arlington and then I'm toast, I might as well be driving blindfolded because it's unfamiliar, it's entirely unmarked, and I've never gone more than a block beyond mystic valley parkway. So needless to say I was lost and running late and I called Dr. Pearson and let her know. I felt embarrassed (this is an office I'd gotten to before by T) and irresponsible and foolish. But when I sat back in my seat while resting in traffic (because of course there'd be traffic AND I'd be lost), I recognized that I was no longer crazed after making the call. I was no longer that worked up over this. I had made the appointment because I've been feeling like shit and had agreed to consider medication and a little more monitoring, so of course I saw this appointment as a big symbolic surrender and of COURSE I couldn't get there, I was late, I was under-slept, I was dark and grim. What was odd was that I came to a place where I wasn't losing my mind. This might sound like something I should have found comfort in, but I didn't. I Was pissed off; somehow my brain was able to calmly handle what I knew I was understand to be a kind of personal apocalypse (here I was, needing help, willing to get it, and I couldn't physically get myself there...madness, right?), and yet once I made the phone call I had no emotional response to it other than "hm...I'm sure this'll work work itself out. And yet, when I was making the bed the morning before (that's right Mum, Dad, I gave making my bed a bold shot) and I couldn't get the pillowcases on, or the day before when Andy asked to push our meeting back an hour, making it so I'd have to reschedule, or each time I encounter the faintest hint of loneliness: I. Am. Shredded. Defeated. Sometimes crying and unable to stop, sometimes silent, and feeling the need to make myself as still as possible. It's strange, but at those times lying on the floor next to my bed and concentrating all my efforts into not moving a single molecule of my body is all I am capable of.
We ended up doing a phone session and I'm good to go. Kind of. My friend Sam once told me, when we were discussing medication "I'd rather be an unhappy Sam than a happy somebody else." It's hard to argue with a point like that. My inclination is that I, too, would rather be an unhappy version of myself than a happier version of some other incarnation of me. Or not me. Or that I'd rather feel the floor of every emotional canyon and the zenith of every peak that's thrown my way, all the while believing I'll be a richer human being because of it. I suppose that just isn't true anymore. I'd rather be a happy anybody else. Hm. Reading that sentence back made me feel really sad.
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Just because you take medication does not make you someone else. I totally used to think the same way until I met too many people (sober and not sober) who said it doesn't work like that. I'm understanding that it often just allows people to keep their head above water...just at water level...not floating above, but not drowning.
Peggy, in my group, was talking about this last night. She's newly taking Effexor and was doing work that was emotional for her. She said she cried when emotionally engaged but she wasn't at the mercy of the emotions. She didn't feel like there were weights tied to her legs. She felt as present as she needed to be...alert and connected, just not as anxious as she might have been without the medication. She talked about being very aware of how she was feeling...fascinated at the difference, which she described as very very subtle and hugely impactful. Lovemop
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