Beach one, May 11th
(Note: this is about me. It’s not about you. It’s about ME unless you also need it to be about you. If you don’t need it, then it’s not about you. Got it? We are each an experiment of one. PERIOD.)
Yesterday when I visited the lake, she was so changeable. From minute to minute, her color and the light across her surface was different. It was hard to stop taking photos, trying to capture each iteration.
We’re so much more like that lake than we like to admit.
We want things to be steady and constant. It feels good to imagine that we’ve arrived somewhere and that’s that.
But, of course, life is change. We are change. Our very identity is not a consistent thing but ever-evolving.
So, for example, when I found an anti-depressant that helped me, I assumed that was it… forever. But…
I’ve spent a long time in this life trying to heal myself with no help. It’s part stubborn and part stupid and just wholly unnecessary. We’re not meant to be 100% individuated. We’re part of a large ecosystem that includes all other humans and all other life.
There’s got to be a reason for that. Pure and simple. And that reason is that we aren’t as strong as we could be until we tap into the larger, vaster, deeper wisdom, until we partake of the infinite tools that are at our disposal.
We can only know so much. The larger ecosystem knows it all and we can plug in any time. We should plug in all the time, actually.
So when my depression got extra bad about a year and a half ago, I finally listened to the people who love me and I got help. I went on medication and I got into therapy.
That medication felt like a fucking miracle…. no. It WAS a fucking miracle.
The dark and often veering toward suicidal thinking was just GONE. POOF! Like that!
It was CHEMICAL all ALONG, I kept yelling at people. I walked around in amazement at this new found fact.
I needed that medicine like we all need oxygen. I was in trouble and that medicine saved me.
I walked around for months feeling brand new and then I started to notice, well, that it didn’t feel as miraculous any more. I didn’t feel the dark brain coming back to life but the light that had entered was definitely dimming.
I got put on a helper med. It didn’t really. I started to think that the helper med was all I needed, and the first med was something I didn’t want to be on long term, so I stopped. That worked out fine.
Until I noticed that nothing good was really coming of the second med either. I can’t tell you HOW I knew this. I just did. I knew I didn’t need anything any more.
I accidentally missed an evening dose and nothing horrible happened so I continued missing evening doses and then every other day morning doses and then I was off.
And dark brain was still nowhere to be felt. (Of course, I am still prone to despairing but LOOK AT THE WORLD. This is normal right now and it doesn’t come with suicidal thinking.)
Dark brain was nowhere to be felt and other stuff started to happen…
I heard the laughter that comes out of me when I’m actually happy and relaxed. I know it because it reminds instantly of my toddler laugh. I just KNOW this laugh. It’s my core laugh.
I noticed that I was getting REALLY SILLY with my husband again. Like silly enough that he would give me these funny little looks that said, “who is this?” It’s been a while since this me has been around and I know it felt foreign (yet delightful) to him.
THEN…
We watched this movie (WATCH IT!!!!!!!), and a few minutes in, there is a scene at a local TV station with Chris O’Dowd in a very brief cameo. I started laughing and then I was LAUGHING and then I was just LOSING MY SHIT.
Every time I looked at Craig, I just laughed even harder. I couldn’t believe I wasn’t peeing our couch! My face felt like it might crack!
I thought Craig was laughing so hard because the movie was funny — and he was — but he was laughing THAT hard because he couldn’t get over my utter JOY.
Which stopped me in my tracks, right? I was feeling the deepest joy… I can’t remember when I last felt like that and I KNOW I haven’t laughed like that in probably 3 years. THREE. YEARS.
Which could make me sad but I don’t have time for that shit.
Along with my happy and silly brain, being off those meds means my creative and ACTIVE brain are on OVERDRIVE.
My point… sometimes you need meds… and then sometimes you stop needing them.
If you don’t stop needing them, so what? You need them and we are grateful you have them. As I was grateful when I thought nothing could possibly help.