And so it begins...

I am languishing in my ever-present misery.  I am sinking.  I am drowning.  I am never happy, I am never free, I am never who I wish to be.  Half my life I tried and tried, and half my life I cried and cried.  The solution, as it seems to me, is to begin again, as I used to be...

Tonight I made a decision and following that decision, I then decided to document the aftermath.  I have no way of knowing with certainty what the outcome will be, but I have reached a point of desperation that calls for radical action.  Tonight I stop taking my medications.

This requires some background, but I will be brief.  Perhaps in future posts I shall delve into the nitty-gritty details of my tale, but for now I will keep things simple.  Thirteen years ago, when I was thirteen years old, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and promptly given powerful medications.  When one drug after another failed, the number of viable options grew smaller and smaller.  Now, half a lifetime later, still plagued by debilitating mood swings, crippling depressions and a plethora of painful side effects, I have dealt the last hand.

I toyed around with the idea of stopping the medications off and on for the last year or so, as I got to the bottom of the barrel of drug options.  I thought more about it when at one, very low point my doctor suggested I try electroconvulsive therapy.  You must be very bad off to try such a thing.  I thought about it even more as I have grown more and more fatigued and more and more weary, despite being on a strong stimulant and a thyroid medication.  I began to think, what am I doing to myself?  What am I doing to my brain?  I feel as if my neurons are percolating in an olio of artificial junk and they are struggling just to fire anymore.  Is my brain even capable of producing enough serotonin anymore?  Will I ever sleep again, unaided by heavy sedatives?

My brain was subjected to intense chemical assaults during my sensitive developmental years, and I fear that the unknowns associated thereof and the long-term affects of psychoactive drugs may have irreparably damaged my brain's ability to regulate mood, emotions, sleep patterns, etc...  Since the age of thirteen, my brain and my body have never been without these drugs.  I feel with the constant flow of failures, it is time to give my brain a break, a chance to recover.  I am not advocating that people with mental illness go off medications; I am fully aware that my case of total medication-resistance is uncommon.  This is my journey, starting tonight.