bluegreen17 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bluegreen17) wrote2002-09-02 08:32 pm
bluegreen17) wrote2002-09-02 08:32 pm
the ring of misused wealth and power
I feel that the most important mental health medicines are love and having people in your life who care about you.
-donald leeper
~~~~~~
sadly,many people do not have much support around them. and part of the reason for that is that those around them have their own problems to deal with. i think so many people have such full plates...
i'm pondering and procrastinating about starting on wellbutrin.i was cleaning out my email today and there was a link to a website for psychiatric survivors...people who have been damaged by the mental health system by coerced as well as voluntary regimens of drugs and/or hospitalization.
the thing is,one does not have the luxury of having emotions and being able to express them in the society most of us live in.
when my mother started taking zoloft,she said she couldn't cry anymore,and she was relieved,because she had been crying when she got sick and lost her job. to me,this was a healthy response to those losses,but it bothered her to express emotion. why,i don't know. i LOVE to express emotion just as i love to express my thoughts.granted,sometimes i have out of control anger in which i get verbally out of control (thankfully not usually physically out of control...i have never hurt anyone when angry,though i have kicked walls and boxes and inanimate objects on occasion,but not often). i think i have rages because i do not feel it is socially acceptable to express myself every time i get frustrated,which happens a lot. and look around at the world...there are many reasons for frustration. i'm not saying it's the best response...but it's a natural one. perhaps if more of us were brought up with buddhist mind disciplines,we'd be happier,healthier,and more compassionate.do you think the dalai lama is faking it? i think not. he and others had that mind training when they were young.
anyway,my point is i am not looking forward to having my emotions dampened and squashed by a drug.i think that's what the drugs do...they push the depression further away,but to me it is not cured,only run away from...it's like compacting garbage...you can make more fit in the container,but eventually it must be removed or it will overflow. i don't know if that's a valid analogy,but it's a thought.
i enjoy crying and relieving tension in that manner. in fact,i wish i felt free to cry more often. i don't want to cry every minute of every day,but i do want to cry when i feel sad and i want to smile and dance when i feel happy. i'm concerned that i will lose both of those things in order to be more 'productive'. i think having to take psychiatric drugs is a really lousy compromise...i wouldn't call it a solution.
so i'm feeling angry about feeling that i must taking drugs so i can do all the chores (and work the two jobs that i need to in order to survive.)
it is bullshit to have to work more than 40 hours a week to pay bills.i wish there were more altruistic employers who would pay people better and share the wealth. i dont believe in passing laws to do this...or maybe i do since it may be the only way to get some people who have so much to share with those who work or are not able to and don't have much. i don't believe in letting people collect welfare out of pure laziness though,but there are lots of people who work hard and are poor.
ideally,those who have much would employ those who have less and pay them a good wage,but this is not an ideal world.
i also think it's a pretty bad thing to do to your body to give it one drug to make you more productive and then take another to calm you down. i can just hear the body protesting...'what the f**k? what do you want?'
i really am not looking forward to being sleepless,jittery and agitated for a couple weeks and having to take a sedative that can be very addictive and destructive if abused.the nurse practioner said i will probably have these symptoms. she didn't mention that the drug may also upset my stomach,or give me headaches or itching...and maybe they will and maybe they won't. i dont have much faith in western medicine,can you tell?
well,on the good news front,i brought back the defective copy of lord of the rings and got another copy and ive been watching it and it's excellent. i've always had a thing for elves and llegolas in the movie is just like i pictured him...although maybe he's 'too young' for me now,but he wasn't when i read the books when i was sixteen! so i'm going to finish watching that for now...and then i just might have to see the two towers in the theatre in a few months!
-donald leeper
~~~~~~
sadly,many people do not have much support around them. and part of the reason for that is that those around them have their own problems to deal with. i think so many people have such full plates...
i'm pondering and procrastinating about starting on wellbutrin.i was cleaning out my email today and there was a link to a website for psychiatric survivors...people who have been damaged by the mental health system by coerced as well as voluntary regimens of drugs and/or hospitalization.
the thing is,one does not have the luxury of having emotions and being able to express them in the society most of us live in.
when my mother started taking zoloft,she said she couldn't cry anymore,and she was relieved,because she had been crying when she got sick and lost her job. to me,this was a healthy response to those losses,but it bothered her to express emotion. why,i don't know. i LOVE to express emotion just as i love to express my thoughts.granted,sometimes i have out of control anger in which i get verbally out of control (thankfully not usually physically out of control...i have never hurt anyone when angry,though i have kicked walls and boxes and inanimate objects on occasion,but not often). i think i have rages because i do not feel it is socially acceptable to express myself every time i get frustrated,which happens a lot. and look around at the world...there are many reasons for frustration. i'm not saying it's the best response...but it's a natural one. perhaps if more of us were brought up with buddhist mind disciplines,we'd be happier,healthier,and more compassionate.do you think the dalai lama is faking it? i think not. he and others had that mind training when they were young.
anyway,my point is i am not looking forward to having my emotions dampened and squashed by a drug.i think that's what the drugs do...they push the depression further away,but to me it is not cured,only run away from...it's like compacting garbage...you can make more fit in the container,but eventually it must be removed or it will overflow. i don't know if that's a valid analogy,but it's a thought.
i enjoy crying and relieving tension in that manner. in fact,i wish i felt free to cry more often. i don't want to cry every minute of every day,but i do want to cry when i feel sad and i want to smile and dance when i feel happy. i'm concerned that i will lose both of those things in order to be more 'productive'. i think having to take psychiatric drugs is a really lousy compromise...i wouldn't call it a solution.
so i'm feeling angry about feeling that i must taking drugs so i can do all the chores (and work the two jobs that i need to in order to survive.)
it is bullshit to have to work more than 40 hours a week to pay bills.i wish there were more altruistic employers who would pay people better and share the wealth. i dont believe in passing laws to do this...or maybe i do since it may be the only way to get some people who have so much to share with those who work or are not able to and don't have much. i don't believe in letting people collect welfare out of pure laziness though,but there are lots of people who work hard and are poor.
ideally,those who have much would employ those who have less and pay them a good wage,but this is not an ideal world.
i also think it's a pretty bad thing to do to your body to give it one drug to make you more productive and then take another to calm you down. i can just hear the body protesting...'what the f**k? what do you want?'
i really am not looking forward to being sleepless,jittery and agitated for a couple weeks and having to take a sedative that can be very addictive and destructive if abused.the nurse practioner said i will probably have these symptoms. she didn't mention that the drug may also upset my stomach,or give me headaches or itching...and maybe they will and maybe they won't. i dont have much faith in western medicine,can you tell?
well,on the good news front,i brought back the defective copy of lord of the rings and got another copy and ive been watching it and it's excellent. i've always had a thing for elves and llegolas in the movie is just like i pictured him...although maybe he's 'too young' for me now,but he wasn't when i read the books when i was sixteen! so i'm going to finish watching that for now...and then i just might have to see the two towers in the theatre in a few months!
Re: Wellbutrin
Note that Wellbutrin is different than most of the other ADD/AFD drugs. It's not a stimulant; it's an antidepressant. So, it's going to work a lot differently than what you might expect if you've tried other drugs. One big thing is that instead of a half-hour to one hour lead time, when I took it, it had a 36 hour lead time. That was rather problematic. After taking it for about six weeks, it reversed itself and started contributing to the ADD/AFD.
Good luck.
Note that I actually take dexedrine to make me baseline rather than taking it to get me accelerated. I actually get sleepy for about an hour after I take it...
Re: Wellbutrin
no subject
When I first started Prozac I couldn't shed a tear, no matter how much I tried. I wanted to, but just couldn't. It frightened me to know that a drug could do that, change my emotions and sensitivity levels. It was scary to know that chemicals created in a lab somewhere were controlling me. I knew it was a good thing though; It did feel good to smile again, something I hadn't done for a long time, at that time. It's just taking the good with the bad and learning to blindly trust in something that might make you feel better.
And you're right, taking meds is just a compromise, getting frustrated is a natural response, and we could all learn a thing or two from buddism.