That moment when you realize your recent and suddenly uncontrollable bipolar tendencies causing you to make self-destructive and drastic decisions which you almost immediately regret and attempt to repair is likely a direct result of mood-stabilizer withdrawal.
That moment is now.
Winter always comes at the right time, it seems — just in time to turn the calm, cool winds of Autumn into some screeching, freezing frostbite of a storm. Just in time to paint the landscape in death rather than in life. Just in time to throw you off your path without giving you any real guidance as to whether or not your decisions are beneficial.
Seasonal Affective Disorder is a physical, mental and emotional phenomenon. This season, the focus is certainly on my mental-emotional plane. Decision-making is a disaster. Relationships are a disaster as a direct result. My stomach churns, my head hurts, I have ended up laying face-down on the floor too many damn times this week.
What the hell is wrong with me? At some point you just have to ask, like after you have spent the entire last week agonizing over whether or not your significant other actually likes you (instead of simply approaching the subject face-to-face like a reasonable adult). And subsequently waking up at 3AM every night, eyes wide open, mind immediately sprinting around the subject of WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON WITH MY LIFE, despite everything on the surface looking completely normal and fine to any neutral observer. My job and income is stable. My body is working. My future is planned within reason. Where is the sanity in having an existential crisis over absolutely nothing at all?
This evening, as I walk over to the sink to maniacally wash dishes for the umpteenth time, I realize I had forgotten to take my medication and supplements. All of them. Ashwaghanda, Calcium, Magnesium, Stinging Nettle, Fish Oil, Collagen and most importantly (but most despised), Lamotrigine — the mood stabilizer that once saved my life from complete catastrophe, but is now being phased out because fuck psychiatric medication, that’s why.
A few days ago I reduced my dosage without any real impetus other than “I want to.” Rebellion is an unavoidable part of my psyche, and I certainly want to show the Western medicine world who’s boss. I have been going down from 200 mg for a year and a half now, and I had just gone down from 75 to 62.5 when the turbulence began. Before that, it was probably only three weeks between 75 and 87.5 mg. I have been a bit careless in my efforts, and forgotten the reason why I take this bipolar medication in the first place.
Because I am bipolar.
To be fair, I understand that bipolarity is a blessing at its best. Perhaps it simply means that my pendulum swings along an uncharacteristically broad perspective; that my emotions traverse a wider spectrum than most. When everything else is balanced, reducing the dosage is a plus: I am releasing the control this medication has over me — even if the control keeps me, well, in control, sometimes.
But my goal is not to control myself. Rather, my goal is to be the fullest expression of me, my soul, my essence. To express myself fully is to hear my intuition before my thoughts. To express myself fully is to feel every discordant emotion and sensation in the moment, before it manifests into something illusory, heavy, unreal but significantly hindering. I want to be me again, without a man-made chemical fix. I want to make decisions based on faith instead of fear. I want, I need to return to that source, that soul, that truth of Who and Whose I am.
Human existence requires patience, which is intensely infuriating, considering how short our lives are. I am aware that at some point I convinced myself that I can achieve enlightenment in this lifetime, despite not living in a monastery and sacrificing all worldly pleasures for the ascetic “middle path.” And yes, in the past week I have at least seriously entertained the idea of quitting life, relationships, sex, food, vanity for an expedited path to realization and peace of mind. But the fact remains that I am here, in this Western life, living more free than most but still surrounded by things, false interpretations of love, and pain — so much pain.
As an existing human, I require patience, especially when it comes to weaning my brain off of a chemical stimulus it has been fed at high doses for three years straight. Yes, we are more than human, but we are human all the same. Until I reach Bodhisattva consciousness I am a victim of chemistry and memories. Twelve-and-a-half fewer milligrams is equivalent to twelve-and-a-half units of emotional and spiritual healing — or 6.25% of the total 200 mg veil now being removed from my mind. I am an archaeological psychologist. I am titrating the acid of imbalances onto the solution of my skin and it feels terrible, but the transformation — the clarity, the accomplishment, the oneness, the freedom, knowing that I can live in alignment with nature, requiring none else — is so worth the time, the effort, the struggle, which I can assure you is so very real.
With that, I extend my apologies to all of those I have hurt in this short and annoying time. I embrace myself with compassion and thank Mother Bear for luring me into my cave where Shadow resides. Failure is a necessary event which informs us of our mistakes such that we may not admit them again. I have failed, yet hereby turn this failure into a success, for I have learned my lesson.
Back up to seventy-five milligrams I go…
Ethereal Ecology 