“Can beauty come out of ashes?”
I’ve been reading over all of my previous blog posts and it’s been very difficult, reliving some of the anguish and turmoil I was feeling when I wrote them.. But as I sit here, listening to “Ashes” by Celine Dion from Deadpool 2, and really take in some of the lyrics –
“What’s left to say?
These prayers ain’t working anymore
Every word shot down in flames
What’s left to do with these broken pieces on the floor?
I’m losing my voice calling on you
‘Cause I’ve been shaking
I’ve been bending backwards till I’m broke
Watching all these dreams go up in smoke”
– it’s hitting me just how differently I feel now than I used to.. And that’s a good thing!! I don’t feel that despair or loneliness.. Yes, there’s still SO much self-doubt inside of me, but it’s getting better bit by bit.. For so long I didn’t understand why I was suffering the way I was, why I felt the way I did, why the medications wouldn’t work.. And, in retrospect, it makes perfect sense! The medications were causing the symptoms, that’s why I didn’t get better/ couldn’t get better! It didn’t matter how much I wanted to feel better, to be better, it just wasn’t happening.. The meds made me think, feel, say, and do things that were completely contradictory to me as a person and that caused so much inner conflict that I struggled to deal with it, because I just didn’t know how.. I didn’t understand why there wasn’t any treatment that helped long-term, some didn’t help at all.. I wish it hadn’t taken me so long to figure out what was going on.. But hindsight is 20/20 and there’s nothing I can do about it now, just cope with the damage that’s been done and try to salvage something that looks sort of like a life..
I look back to the part of my journey where I decided to stop the psychiatric medications and then to stop additional medications, granted that I didn’t need them anymore, and I’m still amazed that I was able to actually do it.. The withdrawal periods were some of the hardest things I’ve been through physically.. I think my resolve to get off of them helped me endure it emotionally, and also having the support of those who care about me was a tremendous help.. But the motivation came from somewhere deep within that I didn’t know still existed, it had been muted by meds so long ago.. The only feelings I had known were pain and doubt.. Now I experience such a different range of emotions and I cannot even begin to express the gratitude I have for that! My day-to-day life isn’t much different in the functions, but my mood and state of mind have changed so drastically that I’m still waiting for the floor to drop out from under me sometimes.. I just hope that one day I’ll be able to rise, like a phoenix, from the ashes that is my life.. I don’t fear tomorrow like I used to, I’m not afraid to walk out of my bedroom door.. I don’t have a plan for my life, I still wonder what I’m capable of, but I do hope to one day be able to accomplish something significant, something more than surviving.. I hope that I’ll be able to thrive and live up to my full potential..