What Happens When You Stop Being Stubborn and Finally Start Taking Medication

I don’t know what took me so long.

How I’ve felt lately. [Photo by Melissa Askew on Unsplash]

[Since I last posted, I reached 1k followers. I wanted to take a moment to thank you all for supporting my work — it really means the world to be able to share my writing with so many readers and to also connect with so many awesome people.]

There are certain moments that stick out to me now, when my mind settles into nostalgia.

The feeling of naked joy, dancing in the fountain with the other children on that overcast, rainy day in New York, a trip I had no other memory of. Standing at the edge of the crowd, watching the lights swirl into rainbow mandalas, my body alive with an ecstasy I’ve never felt before or since. Getting lost in the rough waves of the ocean and feeling at home as my soul container was tossed around like a pool toy, matching my insides in a perfect circle of feeling.

All of these were moments of emotional overflow. As though my mind and body could not take the information pouring through them and instead sent me into a kind of trance of joy.

I have always felt intensely. My highs are sky-high and my lows are close to suicide, at least inside of my head. Moments of feeling like I was the Messiah to moments of knowing I’m no more than a drop of water falling through a drain.

Overwhelm in both directions. [Photo by Romain Lohezic on Unsplash]

I was always in denial about how much this intensity impacted me and my relationship with others. I was in denial about what these highs and lows meant for my brain.

Well, here is what I found out recently: I have bipolar disorder and major depression.

I’ve spoken a lot about my mental illness in the past, but I’ve framed it as two things: anxiety and PTSD. I knew there was probably something else going on to make my brain jump between states of ecstasy and depression, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself. Every time a doctor or psychiatrist asked if I exhibited the symptoms of bipolar disorder, I framed it as PTSD or anxiety. I didn’t want to add another diagnosis to my list.

The other day, after months of feeling like I was burning myself out to try to keep everyone around me happy, after months of feeling guilty for never measuring up, and after years of saying, “I will never take medication — I will learn to deal with this myself,” — I finally went to the psychiatrist and told the truth. I listed all of my symptoms for the first time, allowing them to pour out of my mouth like a Catholic confession, and in return I was given my diagnosis.

When the words dropped from her lips, I felt my heart sink. That makes a total of four mental illnesses that I struggle with. But then she gave me my prescription and a few warnings about mania and depression, and I was on my way to a new realm of myself.

I didn’t know it, that morning before my appointment when I woke up terrified. I didn’t know it would be the last time I felt like that for at least five days.

I didn’t know what relief stood before me.

It felt like a Catholic confession.[Photo by Shalone Cason on Unsplash]

I snapped a photo of myself, just before I left the house. I posted it on Instagram, with the caption, “Outfit of the day for being brave.” My stomach was full of nerves, effervescing through my skin like a packet of tiny electric sparks, striking and striking and striking. I wanted to feel strong. I wanted to feel brave.

I wanted to do something, finally. After thirteen years of struggling with anxiety and another six struggling with PTSD, I was tired. I had fought the guilty, evil voices in my head for so long on my own, with no one to help me or who really understood what I was going through. I had friends by my side, but my unreliability and false promises always disappointed them.

All I knew is that I did not want to be the person that I was any longer. I did not want to be unable to leave the house or have panic attacks in Walmart or on a plane or at concert. I did not want to be alive if I had to suffer like this every single day of my fucking life.

I swallowed the first medication with a bit of food in my belly and thirty minutes later I began to feel… different. I’d always feared that psychiatric medication would make me feel sedated, but if anything, this seemed to be clearing a veil. I could feel it part before my eyes, which felt keen if a bit unfocused.

The veil clears. [Photo by Jakub Kriz on Unsplash]

I have compared my experience of being stuck behind a glass wall, unable to express myself because there is something primal and animalistic always controlling my behaviors, trapping me behind this wall. I cannot just think about things — they come spilling out of my mouth in an unconscious stream whenever anybody is around.

But somehow, that glass wall disappeared within the first hour or so of taking my medication. It was just… gone. Poof. I felt like myself, stable and joyful and warm and soft. No sharp edges glimmering on me, no jaws waiting to snap at someone who was trying to hurt me. My defense mechanisms were still there, but they lay safely in my belly, under control.

For the first time in many years, aside from the occasional beautiful psychedelic experience, I felt like Sam. An authentic version of myself, minus the emotional intensity overlaying everything I saw and thought and spoke.

When I sat down to work, writing felt different. Not good or bad, but just… different. As though the words were further away, but focusing on them was easier. Allowing them to pour through my fingers without the constant criticism, without the overwhelming doubt that always curbed my writing.

I don’t know what took me so long. I don’t know why I waited in the darkness, denial soaking my every pore, deluding myself into thinking that I could handle this all on my own. Sometimes when you’re so far in the darkness, you don’t even recognize the light.

All I needed was a little bit of help. All I needed was to admit it, finally, that I needed something other than talking and worrying and hating myself. No amount of exercise or marijuana or self-help books or goal-tracking or morning routines or nature walks has ever given me this feeling.

And here I am, fully myself. Finally free. Happier than ecstasy and more satisfied than I’ve ever been, just for feeling stable.

For once in my stupid lucky life, I am healing. And I am so proud.