I really don’t know where to start. I haven’t written in so long. I haven’t really felt anything in so long. I recently, well a few months ago now, decreased my antidepressants. I felt fine on them, not depressed at all. But my new doctor and I decided to try decreasing the dose so that I could start taking some nutritional supplements instead, to try and increase seratonin production naturally. Things like 5-HTP, Taurine and Theanine.
So I did. I’ve actually halved the dose, not immediately, but slowly. And I did notice a difference. A quite notable difference. Yes I now feel depressed on and off. The supplements have started to work though I think because it’s less of a depressed feeling and more of an ability to feel things again.
I hadn’t realized it but I actually had stopped feeling things. People sometimes say that antidepressants make them numb emotionally. I never experienced it that way. It just made me feel normal. It helped me to cope with being unwell for so long. I would be in the depths of despair if I didn’t have the support of the antidepressants (which is Zoloft for those wondering). It’s been a life saver.
But it has actually stopped me from feeling a lot of things. Not the day to day ups and downs, getting annoyed with things and people or being happy for a friend, having a laugh. All that was still there, but it did stop me from thinking about my life as a whole emotionally. I didn’t know who I was any more. I didn’t know what I wanted from life. I had stopped dreaming about what life could be like. I didn’t know what was me and what I wanted.
It had been too painful thinking about those things anyway. But now as I was starting to feel things again, both good and bad, I couldn’t ignore it, or sweep it under the antidepressant rug.
At first I felt devastated and panicked. I’m 33 years old, and have been unwell for most of my adult life. I haven’t been in a relationship for 7 years. I live with my mother whom I am financially, physically and emotionally dependent on. I have no assets, no savings, no superannuation. I have no career. No husband, no children. I allowed myself to feel the void of all this. My fear that it was going to be too late for me soon to have children. To have children I need a husband, to have a husband I need to find someone I love and adore who loves and adores me, to find that I need to be the sort of wonderful, vibrant, positive, adventurous and well rounded person that my perfect man would fall in love with, and to be that person I need to find her, and to find her don’t I need to be healthy and well?!
I realized that I actually used to be that person, but that I haven’t seen her at all for a good two years or so. Not since I went overseas in 2010 and had a massive relapse. That is part of what is so terribly devastating about fatigue related conditions. You lose yourself in them. Why? Because it’s near impossible to be vibrant, bubbly, excited, fun, happy and adventurous when you are chronically exhausted. Because when you are exhausted you can’t think clearly, you feel stressed, you can’t cope with pressure or noise or crowds or people in general, you physically don’t have the energy to “be out there and live life”, because the little tiny bit of energy you do have you have to ration ever so carefully for things like having a shower, preparing a meal, eating that meal, paying the bills and other chores that just can’t be avoided. Social occasions scare you half to death, despite the fact that your natural true healthy self is a total social butterfly, because you think about the many disasters that could happen if it’s not all planned down to the detail. How much energy will you have in your energy bank for that day? If it’s in the evening, do you need to avoid your usual daily chores for that day to save up some energy? Will there be something there that you can eat, that fits within all your various food intolerances? Will you have enough energy to talk to everyone? Will people think you’re weird if you suddenly leave for a 20min toilet break so you can chill out and reset and regain some energy? Will the noise of people talking or music be too much for you to handle? And then the worst one of them all, What will you answer when people ask you what you’ve been up to lately? “Oh, nothing much” you’ll coyly reply.
“So where are you working now?”
“No-where, haven’t been well enough to work since 2006”
“Oh…” they awkwardly reply. “…so what have you been doing?”
“Absolutely nothing”.
“Gosh, that sucks…. So, you married? Kids?”
“Nope, not well enough to date I’m afraid….. But still hoping to have kids…. one day…”
“ Ah…So where are you living now? Didn’t you used to live in Campbelltown?”
“Yep, still living with my mother.”
“Oh….”
That’s pretty much the extent of your conversation skills these days anyway, because you don’t do anything but watch TV all day everyday, other than nap and do some chores, so you have absolutely nothing to talk to people about. You can only talk to people about TV for so long before they start to think you have no life, which of course is true. You don’t.
For last New Years Eve I went to a friend’s party and this is exactly how my fears were realized. Needless to say, despite my best efforts to stay positive and stick it out, it was not a fun night!
I’ve been looking for motivation, for the greater part of this year. I’ve started seeing a new doctor who seems very good and I’ve finally only just two weeks ago started chelation therapy for heavy metals (mainly mercury and lead we think). I first read about heavy metal toxicity around February – March this year, and it’s taken until now, October to finally begin the therapy. I’m using Andrew Cutler’s protocol with DMSA, and in a couple of months adding ALA (Alpha Lipoic Acid).
I am hoping that this is the missing piece of the puzzle that is my health. I should be full of renewed enthusiasm. But I just haven’t been. I’ve been struggling with staying on the healthy diet and taking all my various supplements. And exercise, well, who can be bothered when going to the mailbox is a struggle. When EVERYTHING is a struggle, how do you find motivation????
The thing is that it’s easy to stay positive when you can see improvements over time, however small. It’s also easy to stay positive when you haven’t been unwell for all that long. Even a year or two, you can still think things will get better. But when it’s been 6-7 years, and you’ve seen so many different doctors, in fact you’ve seen the best ones in your town, you’ve tried various different treatments, and you haven’t seen any real improvements for 2 years, it starts to get a bit tough to see the light. Keeping the faith, just isn’t that easy any more.
Despite how negative I’m probably sounding now, I just never give up, and I’m always trying new things. I recently decided that going to bed earlier and also getting up earlier would be good for me. But with no motivation I had to think of something that would actually work. I have a friend who is in a very similar boat to mine in terms of health and energy levels, and we decided we would go to bed earlier – together. So now we text each other at night as soon as we’re in bed, and it’s like a little competition to try and beat the other one to it. It’s also inspiring when I get a text from her at a good hour like 9pm at night. It makes me stop what I’m doing and gets me up and ready for bed.
In terms of getting up early, I knew a text wouldn’t do it. So I asked my father to call me in the mornings when he’s on the train on his way to work. He’s bossy and pushy and I knew I wouldn’t be able to brush him off. It’s also working quite well.
However no amount of nagging from my dear dad, was getting me moving physically. The thing that is doing that for me is my fear of an unrealized life. I was daydreaming about a recent celebrity crush, and I got to the point where I knew too much about him to believe that it was plausible for someone like him to be into someone like me. Both physically and mentally. Suddenly I had such a sinking feeling in my gut. I had effectively ruined my perfect crush. For someone like him, my ideal man, to be into me, I would have to be a vibrant, adventurous, full-of-life, positive, active and not to mention physically fit woman. I felt disappointed that that isn’t what I am, but then slowly realized that in fact that is whom I used to be. It is who I would be if I was allowed and able to be my true self. My healthy self.
I had always been so positive and hopeful about life, that things would work out great and that I would have an amazing life. That all my dreams would come true. But now I felt like my life was slipping away from below me. How was I going to have the perfect man, with the perfect relationship and the perfect children, when time was running out and I still wasn’t well???
That’s what made me decide I had to do something about it. I looked at myself and thought that I wouldn’t want to be with me. I had to find that vibrant, fun, adventurous girl again. I had to find her, and get her fit and healthy. Somehow.
I decided that I do want the perfect man, and the perfect relationship, and the children. I do want to be fit and healthy. I do want to go walking in the Swedish highlands. I do want to feel things. I do want to experience life. I want to live life to the fullest. I want to taste the nectar of life’s garden. I want to be moved by things I see and experience. I want to laugh and cry with joy. I want to feel what it’s like to be ecstatically happy and excited. I want to be able to go for a run, and feel invigorated by it. I want to feel in complete control and trust of my body.
I want to be gutsy and fiery. I want to be vibrant and full of life. I want to be fun and light-hearted. I want to be in love, with a man, with my own baby, and with life. I want to be a great mother and a loving and supportive wife. I want to care about people again. I want to care about being happy. I want to want things again. I want to want them with a passion.
I don’t want a mediocre life, I don’t want to settle. I want my fire back.
This brings me to the end of my rant, and a quote I once heard.
“The answer to How, is Yes”.
If you want something bad enough, just say Yes to it. Commit to it, and the How will reveal itself in time. As long as you have enough power behind your intention, as long as you scream Yes to it over the roof tops, and keep putting one foot in front of the other, you’ll move towards it. When you lose the intention and the fire, you lose your goal.
I had lost my intention. I had let it slip away. I had numbed it with antidepressants and TV. I had forgotten it was there because it was less painful that way, I thought. It was too painful to dream of things I felt I’d never have.
But that’s the thing about dreams and intentions. When they die, so do we.
I’ve rediscovered my dreams and desires, and reaffirmed my intentions. And that is a great start!
Health & Happiness
Svea
FreeSvea Blog 