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The good news about being depressed and bi-polar
is that much of it is brain-chemistry that can be corrected with medications. Finding the right ones for yourself is the tricky part of that. Prozac and lithium did wonders for me, giving me a real vacation from life-long symptoms. It was as if they moved me back from the crumbling edge of the precipice: I could stop panicking, and begin to sort out the matters that were more about history which also fed into depression and rage.
You're right, there is no true simple forgetting or dismissing of the past. Past or delayed traumatic stress syndrome is real-- and it doesn't matter whether the trauma was a sudden, short-lived disaster, or a long, drawn-out business of a childhood spent feeling unloved and imprisoned in the enemy camp, or something in between. That such things happened should not be dismissed as if they were nothing, as if we were not hurt, as if our hurt is not important enough to be mended.
But we must reclaim our emotional energies from them, and realize that sometimes we have to do all the mending ourselves: we can seldom go back and get retribution, or even understanding from those who hurt us. Taking back our power over our own joy is how we win! Let them believe what they like, if they lose thier power to ruin our lives, they are the losers. I truly believe that the Universe will collect what they owe sooner or later, so I don't have to expend my energy to get anything out of them.
The most important thing I learned in my time on medications is that when I feel down or cranky or ready to rage, it is not about what is happening in the real world: it is a chemical imbalance in my brain, it is echoes of the past. And it is temporary, it will be better later, or tomorrow.
I wish you much joy and many spontaneous smiles, and the great feeling of loving and of safety and of being powerful in your own life!
When you are feeling at your best, that is who you really are. When you are determined to survive, to win, to not let these conditions own you, that is the real you. The rest is distortion of you, and the illness, the imbalance of your system. The better you get, through understanding and loving and empowering yourself, the more like yourself you'll feel, until the feelings of depression become the occasional odd moment instead of a steady state.
CL
posted by
Ciel
on January 2, 2007 at 5:39 AM
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Nice post.
posted by
afzal50
on January 2, 2007 at 5:31 AM
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