On getting well:
feminine spiritualityI hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
I do not know where this post will go. In all honesty I was seriously considering starting a new blog with this post. I have a thing about ceremony, about turning a new leaf, about starting over. It is a mental block, and it is an impediment. It is an impediment because if I do not feel that all of the stars are aligned properly I often will not begin something that is within my heart to accomplish. Thus, my heart is unwell. My mind is unwell. My spirit is unwell.
-- Confucius
Over these past few weeks I have allowed myself to accept those three aforementioned statements. While I was not in complete denial over the idea that I am not living a life of wellness, I was pretty actively ignoring those feelings and I was definitely self-medicating against them. I was in a pattern of using pot, alcohol, food, entertainment, and pontification to avoid dealing with the fact that the way I have come to interact with my environment is in a depressed manner. I have allowed myself to recede into a hard casing that keeps me from true, honest interaction with the world around me.
In this space I have mentioned different times my struggles with depression. My views on the disorder have varied over time, and even still, as I write this, I cannot fully encapsulate what I understand about this term. Yet, I believe that I can say honestly, in these past months, I was in a depressed state.
As I think back it is unclear to me when this disorder began. As I said, I have struggled with depression before, I might even venture to say that the majority of my life has been spent coping with the world around me in depressed way (this is a whole another section of this unwinding story). There are a couple key developments concerning the disorder that sticks out in my life’s timeline. One being when I was 20 years old going through my divorce. At that time I accepted depression as a disease. I sought medical help, which was the right decision I believe, as I was struggling with thoughts of hurting myself. During that time I allowed my physician to prescribe an anti-depressant for me. I took Lexapro diligently for two years.
The second development that sticks out is when, over this last cold, harsh, winter I decided to slowly wean myself off of the drug. I made this decision for a few reasons. The first reason I decided to explore a life without psychotropic drugs was because I read the book Cunt and it opened my eyes to the ideas of holistic health and naturopathy. The second reason was that I had begun to experience some side effects from the drug and the doctor decided to up my dosage. I went through this leg of the journey pretty much alone, except for Josh who encouraged me the whole time through. My parent’s were not very supportive of my decision, and I did not discuss it with a doctor because I was pretty sure that they would try to talk me out of it. I was able to glean some information off of the internet that helped guide me. I wrote a bit to deal with it, mostly in letters to Josh keeping our communication open and our relationship safe. Choosing to go off anti-depressants was one of the most challenging things I have ever done. The withdraw symptoms alone were hell, and the time of year (the dead of winter, in a house with no heat) made things even harsher. And yet I got through it with my life.
Things were different when I came off the drug. Life was more blatant, my response to certain stimuli more emotional. I found myself dealing more and more with angry feelings; sometimes the smallest instance would fill my chest with a rage so fierce I would have mental flashes of throwing things or lashing out. Yet, not knowing properly how to deal with these newly felt emotions I often repressed them, or distracted myself through them (which is how I have dealt with things my whole life through). This coping mechanism of repression and distraction, I see now, is one of the things what has caused this disorder (I believe).
Furthermore, the things I chose to distract myself with aggravated the situation even more. While I had in the past smoked pot for recreation purposes, I began to use the drug more habitually and for different reasons. I found that it brought me to a state of numb bliss that allowed me to forget about the uncomfortable things I would be feeling. I liked the drug because it made me feel more inspired, more creative and free, it also sped up my mind. Eventually my use became iffier; there would be certain highs that were plagued with severe anxiety and paranoia. Thus, began my abuse of alcohol.
Shortly after my 21st birthday I began drinking alcohol recreationally. Nights out at the bar, concerts, weekends away drinking with friends, these things were all part of me and Josh’s lifestyle as a couple. Drinking was fun, especially in social situations where, being an introvert, I tended to clam up. A few drinks and I would feel looser, happier, and more comfortable in my own skin. This social aspect of alcohol use was never really a problem as it did not translate into our everyday lives. Seldom did we drink during the week, or at home unless we had company. This slowly began to change for me as my emotional/mental landscape became more treacherous.
I can’t say when I began having a problem with drinking. Sometime earlier in this year I believe. Life began to look more and more unbearable and drinking in the evenings began to creep into my lifestyle. It was not uncommon to for me to begin with a drink at dinnertime and then continue into the night until I fell into a dizzy sleep. Alcohol had the opposite affect of pot. It slowed me down, made things more fluid and goofy. When the pot would make me anxious I depended on alcohol to slow me down.
My drinking began to take a toll on my daily life; I would find myself not wanting to get out of bed in the morning and then greeting life with a less that cheerful manner. Often the only way I would feel halfway awake was if I would consume copious amounts of caffeine and sugar. While those two chemical would make me feel more alert I would be left with anxiety and jitteriness, and in their wake a terrible crash with would render me into a deeper state of depression. And thus the cycle would continue—pot, alcohol, caffeine, sugar.
I began to despair. While I did not want to look closely enough at my lifestyle to see the problems, I could not quite get away from the nagging intuition that my life was not right. I would cry out to my Goddess for mercy and grace and help. I would lay in bed sleeplessly begging for guidance. I would sit by my altar and scribble requests on tiny sheets of paper and tuck them into my miniature wailing wall. I would read and read about peace and contentment.
Slowly my Mother began to allow me to see bits of real truth through my tightly, chemically controlled mental landscape. She was merciful with her prodding; my conviction did not overwhelm me or leave me filled with negativity or guilt. She just gently began to allow me to see that my life could be more than this scrabbled searching on the outside for peace. That I could find peace within myself and within Her love for me and our love together.
My first real action toward healing happened one hazy day at the library about a week and a half ago, where I went high and searching for answers. I didn’t have an agenda for visiting, I merely felt the longing to learn and so I wandered the shelves looking. The thought came into my head to look for alternative treatments for depression and I went to the computer to look. I found the right section and began leafing through certain books. I wanted to be selective about what information I chose, as there are many different types of treatments for depression. I sought something that would not just introduce a new chemical to my mind, but one that would take my whole being—body, mind and spirit—and treat the whole of my person. I found one such book
On August 8th I changed my diet drastically at the suggestion of the literature I was reading. I have since been abstaining from all sugars, yeasts, gluten, caffeine (with the exclusion of green and yerba mate teas), and alcohol. This is a rather drastic change for me seeing as the large majority of my diet has consisted of sugars and bread related products. I also must closely watch my carbohydrate intake, which can be rather tricky being a vegetarian. I have had to edit my vegetarian state to pescetarian (adding fish to my diet).
When I first began this diet I was riddled with doubts, fears, and insecurities about my abilities to abstain from so many different foods. Moreover, I was very concerned about getting sober, as our lifestyle has promoted alcohol use for quite awhile. I found in the first few days of the diet that my biggest craving was not for alcohol though, but for sugar. There would be times that I would be trying to relax and meditate and the only thing I could think about was an ice cream cone.
Also, at the beginning of this transition I had no intention of giving up my pot use. I felt it was my one last vice. I mean, come on! No sugar, no coffee, no breads, hadn’t I given up enough? Yet, as always, in Her utmost gentleness my Mother guided me into another leg of this journey by placing in my heart the desire to get clean as well. The decision to stop smoking pot was a very difficult one, and I still struggle with it daily. I often question if I will be able to keep it up, or if I will smoke occasionally still, for special occasions per say. In my heart I do not know the answer to this yet, but I’m sure that it is there and I will find peace about it. And as for right now, in the present moment on my fourth day of being clean, I have peace in that and that is enough.
If you have persevered long enough to read this offering of honesty I do thank you with my utmost gratitude. I decided to write about these things in this spot because I feel that this part of my journey is important to what this space has been about. I did not feel it was possible to continue to write here without offering up in the barest, most honest way where I am at on my life path. These words are not here to present any type of judgment, but merely to share what is going on in my heart and life at this time. Please be patient with me.