Running out of Meds

There is constant pressure when you take medications to constantly refill the weekly container. Being my ADD self I usually have boxes of my meds in both places I live ,so I never actually think or believe I'm going to run out of meds. Then the impossible happens ,there is a combination of reactions. First off panic from not having the meds to stay on schedule. Then the other side of my brain kicks in and says don't worry your fine, you don't need meds to function. The realist in me claws its way to the microphone yelling at me to message the doctor. Calm and logic don't stick around long. Anxiety drags all the worries back front and center, throwing complicated thoughts all over the clean space. that its way to late you haven't taken your meds for two days it's over you messed up and will never be able to fix it. The side effects will mess you up more than its helping you. Then anxiety drops the big one how could you mess up?? Is your life not important to you?? This always hits a super deep place of trying to reach a strong level of self-care and self-love. This rocks the foundation of caring and loving myself. Once realized then I try to remove some of the anxiety and shame for caring about myself . Even if it's not perfect all the time. Taking care of yourself doesn't fit this elusive version of perfection your mind perceives. So thanks reality for making me evaluate a much deeper aspect of myself. Even when it just looks like a simple empty pill container.

The Aversion to Help Yourself

Aversion to using tools I get to help myself.

I think I tell myself to save it for when I really need it. As if like I cant justify using the tools I buy for myself to help make life easier for myself. In the exact moment, I choose to use something to help my life. Planning to use the tool, but after a while I don't. With a huge stockpile of tools in my house that could make my life easier I search for the reasons why I didn't. It feels very silly and semi-delusional as to why I won't then use the tools to help me in the areas of life that I got them for. Honestly, it completely baffles me to see how much self-sabotage I bring into my own life. I'm trying to stop and evaluate, why my brain completely erases the notion of these tools. I wonder what the aversion to feeling good inside and out is really coming from. It portrays itself in many different ways at many different points in time. It shows itself in smaller ideas, like never letting myself relax ,and reminding myself of what I'm not rather than what I have become. I believe the aversion to using the tools that I have to help myself is coming from something deeper. The aversion to self-acceptance, love, and care.

Morning Mind Melodies

Who wakes up in the morning speaking to themselves?
As you wake up moving like a marionette doll not feeling your body as your own. Moving is like walking through land minds not wanting to set your joints off. Usually, this leads to hating my joints and limbs and wishing them gone. Which then leads to a disturbing amount of self-hate, and wishing my limbs would up and walk off and replace themselves.
After starting to understand how much this sentiment was hurting my mind and body. I started trying to compartmentalize my feelings of hate and instead work on accepting my body with its many limitations, though different most hours of every day. While the automatic is still self-depreciation and hate now at least I am able to recognize the tendencies and try to stop myself and replace the harming words with accepting words instead. While these are super small steps each one is oiling a nail on the marionette helping the machine work better leading to self-love.

Mental Heath Conversation

Let's talk about it! I'm tired of the feelings of shame and silencing of mental health issues. Just the time it took me to let myself write this post battling through the feelings of shame that arose.

I take medication to help myself care for my mental and physical wellbeing. Which honestly has been one of the most helpful tools I added to my arsenal to deal with my physical and mental health. As my physical conditions change and are partly not under my control . It is very helpful to have a tool that helps give me more space in my depository of mental and physical health. That doesn't mean this journey was easy it just means it's been worth it.

Step 1 was talking to a psychiatrist. Now, this wasn't the first time I had spoken to a psychiatrist. I had been to one before but wasn't in a space of giving myself the care that I needed. I didn't fully believe that I could use the help. I had a deep sense of wanting to be independent and felt that getting any help was ruining my independence. It didn't help that societies voices always found a place in my mind claiming I was weak, that I needed help for my mind.

Step 2 was listening to the psychiatrist. Which actually took 3 meetings and about 6 months between each one. Why? Even with her handing me a tool that could make my life exponentially better; I still felt completely isolated . That I was the only one who couldn't handle life without extra help. After talking to various people and coming to the conclusion that the excuses of other humans how they would react to medications . Is NOT a good reason to not take care of myself in the best way possible. I then filled the prescription and actually started taking care of myself.

The biggest hurdle that I had to overcome to start my journey of caring for my mental health was shame. The shame that comes from silence. The pharmacist constantly runs out of my medication. Yet no one discusses the facts in a healthy light and gives it legitimate space in healthcare. The facts that medication is not a crutch rather a tool to help me function better in the world. So with this post, I hope to try and shatter a little of the bubble of silence surrounding mental health care. Let's get the conversation started.

Self Care Soliloquy

Self Care. It comes in many different shapes and sizes and morphs into different beings on a constant basis. One day it looks like grocery shopping and eating cereal for dinner. Another time it looks like eating 3 meals and showering. Sometimes it looks like reminding yourself not to destroy the skin around your nails from your anxiety. Sometimes it looks like zoning out to the rest of the world while calming your racing mind inside. Sometimes it looks like sleeping in. Sometimes it looks like not sleeping at all till you run the demons out of your mind. Self-care is a chameleon and while one thing might have worked for you one day, the next time it might not. One of the most important ideas I have learned so far on my self-care journey is to not get angry at myself when something I try once doesn't work a second time, just keep learning and taking care of yourself on this journey of life.

The Body Bubble

Today someone touched my leg while I was getting off the train. While he was a train worker and trying to help me get off the train, he didn't use his words for a simple action that really just could have been said. It bothered me way more than I expected it to, so I decided to delve down into those feelings to figure them out. As I sat in the feeling of being violated, I tried to understand why a simple touch was so off-putting. I realized that as a disabled woman, I for the longest time have been touched involuntarily by doctors, physical therapists and by misguided well-meaning people. Lots of people don't understand that my wheelchair is an extension of my body, so if you come up behind me and push my chair without asking, you are essentially pushing a person walking.Now while it might look like you are helping me, if you don't ask--you're not!! You are actually harming the relationship of trust between able-bodied people and disabled people. As someone who works incredibly hard to build a trusting relationship with my body about control, and learn to love it, touch is an incredibly powerful in trust in my relationships. Try to enhance the bubble rather than pop it.

Not being ok-- and being Ok with it

I don't have to feel great or even ok all the time. While society and those around me feel the need to always try and fix me when I'm not feeling ok, I've learned to listen to my body rhythms of highs and lows. While learning to surf the highs and just lie down on my board during the lows. It is OK to not feel OK all the time. I used to panic everytime I felt low not knowing exactly what I thought had triggered my low-not understanding that while sometimes a very specific event will trigger a deep low, all waves go up and then crash down, in order for the next wave to rise up. I have learned the panic of the low does nothing to help you paddle through it, just paddle and wait for the next wave to carry you high, and learn to enjoy the lows to get to the highs.