Numbing Agents
I’ve been on antidepressants. Not recently, but for many years I took them. I didn’t have better coping skills back then and so I looked to the pills when things got too crazy, too stressful, or when there was a lingering sadness that I could not seem to overcome otherwise. I’ve been off of antidepressants now for almost 5 years.
The pills took the edge off any sadness or anxieties. They keep you out of the darkest bottom of your mental pit. But the problem is that you can’t hide, avoid, or deny parts. My experience with antidepressants is that they’re like a little numbing agent preventing you from the “danger” of fully experiencing your strongest emotions. But in that way they numb BOTH the highs and the lows.
Recently I was reading “The Invitation” by Oriah I found this passage sums it up nicely:
“We are afraid of pain—emotional and physical—and we want to believe that there is a way around experiencing our own sorrow, that we can avoid the pain and lose nothing of the fullness and joy of living. It’s simply not true.”
Holding yourself back in life or denying your dreams out of a singular focus on safety, security, risk avoidance, etc is like applying a topical antidepressant to everything. You might successfully avoid getting hurt that way, but you will also successfully avoid experiencing your full potential vitality! You lose part of your opportunity to experience the “fullness and joy of living” when you try to avoid the rough parts of life.
We can’t hide, deny, or avoid PARTS...of who we are, of our emotions, or of our dreams. Numbing or avoiding the potential pains robs us of ever experiencing true joy and freedom.
How do you chose to live?
Pleasure and pain give us remembrance of the past. By that way we are able to learn and change. If something like a drug, inhibits us, then we won´t be able to learn or change. Some say it´s living in an emotional desert. Good for you to make that change.
Best wishes.
Very true what you say here. Thanks for that thoughtful comment. 🙏🏽
Reading your post I remember what my psychiatrist told me when I was dealing with anxiety and panic attacks last year: "instead of asking for pills you should fight those feelings and cut them from their roots".
Work in progress...
Agreed. Much better approach than just avoiding and denying the feels with the meds. Although, for me at least, fight might be a strong word for it? Face it. Turn towards the nasty feelings. Maybe even embrace them? Then they fully express themselves and die away has been my experience. But maybe sometimes battle is called for. ✊🏽
THIS. I've personally written on this extensively here on Steemit.
The way your posts are done marvels me, it's so real and we all apply to it in different ways.
depression doesn't Show that we r weak, it shows how strong we r to admit it.
Lots of people live in self denial.
Thank you for your frankness.
please look at this post, I hv been away for over Two months.
Thank you
https://steemit.com/busy/@ambdavid/be-specific-with-your-emotions
Thanks honey. I love your thoughtful comments. Where ya been for 2 months?
BEAUTIFUL!
Thanks honey for compliments and resteem! 🙏🏽😀
You keep sayin' stuff I want to say.
😉
I share with you the vision of life that everyone chooses. The brain depends on the mind, what we think, when we decide to think differently the brain is altered and many things change, we become smarter. The brain cares in what we believe "believe that you can" or "believe that you can"; It is not the physical, it is the brain that decides the movement.
Some people around me naturally experience wicked highs and deep, dark lows. Some experience nothing like that.
For me, I can experience excitement and intense happiness, but never the obscenely intense highs, nor the darkest of lows...
I don't know... how can one do it, time and again?
I wonder...?
Great post! Awesome poses! Don't run from yourself embrace it!
In my own experience with GAD, the choice to medicate or not is very personal and varies from person to person.
I chose to maintain a low daily dose of antidepressants for exactly the same reason you went off them - without the help they provide to maintain a proper chemical balance, I am numbed by unrelenting repetitive thoughts and worst-case thinking. In my case, all the proper meditation in the world and other coping skills still benefits greatly from chemical help in keeping my serotonin levels in check.
Oh...thank you for mentioning this. I did not mean to imply that being on medication is wrong or bad. I’m just celebrating my own finding of other methods that help me more at this point. My son had major ocd and medication saved his life. There are times when
Medication IS the best path. ✌🏽
Absolutely, for what it's worth, it didn't come off as if you were implying medication was bad. I'm just happy people are finding what works for them and wanted to share my own story :)
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