Medication… Is it the right decision?

Antidepressants saved my life. I didn’t understand it at the time, but medication kept my repressed emotions at bay until I was ready to deal with them. Raising 4 children (to the best of my ability), while attempting to co-parent with 2 ex-husbands (who both had traits like my father), didn’t allow me time to deal with my repressed emotions. Medication kept me functioning in the world I was born in to until I made time to deal with the grief that had been stuck in my body from my dysfunctional upbringing.

We all have a story, some more traumatic than others, and one of the many things I’ve learned about Childhood Trauma is:

“It’s not what happened to us as children that caused all our issues; it’s what happened inside us that created the havoc.”

Because I was trained by my parents and society to be one way and my true self was another, this dichotomy created torment inside that I was incapable of dealing with at the time.

Medicine became the “bridge” of my old self to my true self.

Crossing this bridge takes time, and the amount of time is different from person to person. Unfortunately for me, my journey on medication lasted 22 years, as no one knew how to guide me off them. No doctor said:

“Try grief therapy to deal with your repressed emotions. Maybe if you start moving that trauma out of your body, you won’t need medication anymore.”

Instead, the doctors said I’d probably need to be on medicine for life, and well…. they were wrong. Before entering grief therapy, I attempted to get off my medication 10 times over the course of 10 years. I failed each and every time because I did not know what to do with my repressed emotions. I understand now that until I “learned” how to release these old emotions that were never processed as a child, they would continue to dictate my anxiety filled future.

It’s been 5 years since I’ve been medication free, and although I haven’t always felt well these past years, I know the importance of processing my emotions. All my emotions; the happy ones, sad ones, angry ones, etc. Today my intention, my goal is to process my emotions as they occur, without repressing, as I know this keeps my internal energy flowing in a healthy way.

Because my dysfunctional childhood forced me to repress my emotions, I’m forever grateful that Grief therapy has pulled the internal plug inside which has allows my old repression to flow. I now know it’s never to late to deal with what hasn’t been dealt with. Having this knowledge based on my experience, has given me a road map in moving forward in life. A map that keeps connecting me to MY-TRUE-SELF..