aalwaysponderingblog-blog

[aalwaysponderingblog-blog]

THE BULIMIA

‘there’s a drop,

in the load on the weighing scale

but that on my shoulders,

has surely increased.

they used to laugh,

hurling their mean remarks

as to how undesirable

i was,

my body being the evidence.

now,

they clap,

announcing me their idol.

as i could slip into crop tops now.

they no longer felt,

the need to point out

and remind me of

how much i eat,

everytime i took another bite ,

as that bite

hardly piled on my body,

little did they know

that it didn’t move past

the stomach either.

the secret hours

bent over the toilet,

flushing away those calories,

the secret hours,

spent in pain,

into the black hole of self starvation,

that made me hate food,

and everyone that consumed it,

somehow rendered me a success.

[aalwaysponderingblog-blog]

Why I would rather suffer than take psychiatric medications

When my mother realised that I had been self- harming, she immediately rushed me to the psychiatrist who prescribed medications. After reaching home, my anxiety took over and I just did not want to take the medications since I felt that they would control me. I cried, and told my mother how I didn’t trust anyone anymore, not even her. Though I was overdoing it at that point of time, I wish I had trusted myself enough to stick to my decision.

Nevertheless I took them. That very night , my mother saw my self- harm scars and realised the matter was worse than she thought it was and rushed me to the psychiatrist who prescribed a greater dose of the same medications. One of them was to address impulsivity, and I knew that my self- harming was more than plain impulsive behaviour. I realise self-harming is a grave issue, but I also feel that the treatment goal should never really be stopping the self- harming , it should be working on the issues that cause the self- harming on the first place.

The first one week was great, but the rest three weeks before I was to meet the doctor where not. I didn’t feel anxious anymore. Why? Because I was barely awake. I felt more depressed. Why? Because I was barely awake.

This cycle continued. I saw three psychiatrists and every time an alteration was made in the medication, I would function a little better for a few days (which was probably the mania caused by the meds) and then things would get worse.

HERE’S WHY I STOPPED THE MEDICATIONS-

1) New issues popped up that weren’t previously there- I don’t know whether they were side effects or deterioration of my mental health. All I knew was that the medications weren’t helping the way it was intended they do, but by now I had to rely on them. Even if there was no need for them when I started off, now I felt there was.

2) My weight started sky rocketing- which in turn led to me feeling worse, self-harming more, and becoming a bulimic to a point where I could not get out of bed.

3) They were clearly not helping- not with my depression, not with my anxiety, definitely not with my self-harming, my new severe learning and concentration difficulties etc.

4) I wasn’t a laboratory white mouse- the doctors for sure didn’t know what they were doing and whether it would help or not. All they could do was give their best shot and hope that the medications did more good than harm. I do not blame them for that since psychiatry is tricky and that might seem like the best option when the patient is suicidal and self- harming (about which the medications couldn’t do anything).

Every time I went back them, they would just alter it as if it were an experiment. I know medical science probably cannot give answers to everything just yet but psychiatric medications are pretty strong and I don’t think they should be prescribed in this haphazard manner.

5) Not everyone suffering from mental illnesses needs medication- I am sure meds have probably been life savers for many, and I know many people require it to keep their heads above the water or to even be somewhat alright, but not everyone needs it as much as the psychiatrists feel obliged to prescribe.

I feel somewhere this happens because psychiatrists at time lack the skills needed to help the patient cope up with suicidal thoughts, urges to self-harm or purge, just to name a few. In these cases they may feel it’s better for the patient to give medication a shot than to risk the alternative.

6) I feel it’s the easy way out- it may sound stupid and I am not condemning people who do take medications. Some people really need it, but I didn’t. I knew that whether I take medications or not it’s only me who can bring myself out of it, I just had to walk through the pain, which I successfully did.

To conclude, I feel whether the mental illness is genetic or caused by events or both, psychotherapy, self- introspection, changing our mindset , finding new coping skills, etc can always help atleast to some extent and that medication is not the only way out.

Even if I hadn’t recovered without the medications, I would have chosen suffering over taking them and putting my body through all of that again.

[aalwaysponderingblog-blog]

why conquering depression is definitely not about fighting all the time

If depression ever hit you, you know that a lot of times it can make being happy seem like a scary train to get onto and also a distant possibility. However, I hypothesize that just escaping the grasp of depression may ingrain an aversion to feeling down similar to how a heart break may promote aversion to love (at least for a while). Not that this state is very lucrative anyways, but sometimes it is a necessity.

Having suffered bouts of depression for a while now, I finally accepted the fact that even though I’m doing my best to live through the pain, my dream of just waking up one day without depression is not going to come true. I’m going to have to ignore it, and be spoilt brat degree rebellious. I’m going to have to go against it with each breathe I take, with each action I choose. Giving up is not an option, loosening up for a while isn’t an option either. I had to be on a struggling mode 24x7 regardless of my energy levels if I did not want to go spiralling down.

But I changed my mind. Imagine a five year old kid crying around for attention all the time. Now of course it’s not possible for that kid to be placed at the centre of the spotlight just so they stop crying since that would be a surefire way to spoil them, but one cannot neglect the fact that one needs to address the cause of the child’s behaviour.

Similarly, if all your mind wants you to do around the clock is sleep, binge eat, cry and procrastinate, it is obvious that you cannot give in every single time, but our mind is a powerful device, indirectly the only tool we own and if it repeatedly and exhaustingly wants us to feel a certain way, there are chances that doing so is what we need at the moment.

If you find yourself in the midst of an ocean, the general advice is to not fight the waves, but to let yourself go along with it until you reach the shore or to a safe haven.

While working on your recovery, if you have been working extra hard and have managed to keep the blues at bay, chances are that exhaustion will hit you sooner or later. At this point of time, you need to realize that though recovery is your primary goal, recovery involves hovering around the norm and it is quite normal for people to go off track, be unproductive or low from time to time.

Every emotion is important, and trying to be okay all the time can backfire because instead of expressing your emotions, you are locking it up and when you cannot hold it in anymore, the walls of the dam will burst and you will be neck deep in water. This is when you will resort to unhealthy coping skills and succumb to depression again.

So if you feel it coming, give yourself some time, ranging from hours to days to go off track, cry, sulk, sleep or whatever it is you do when you feel low so you can move on as a more stable person at the end of the day.