Raw to the Bone

Liquidity crumbling like little flitters

Writing to myself for myself. That is the purpose. Today I learned that I went off my meds too quickly, again. I went down from 50mg of prozac to 40mg, right after eliminating adderall and going 1mg down on Klonopin. My nervous system is trying to catch the fuck up.

An obvious sign for me that I’ve done too much too fast to my nervous system is a razor sharpness throughout my fascia. My brain feels like it’s bleeding/ melting out of my ears. I literally can’t move my physical body, no matter how much I will it to move with my thoughts. My mental body takes over and begins to live in my muscles as tiny cramps with each pressure-filled thought about something I need to be doing that I wasn’t doing, and therefore I am “lazy, pathetic, fat, hideous, ruined, dead, behind everyone else, needy, and a burden.”

Here’s how it all went down…

Before attending the Possibility Lab in New York, I was taking around 10mg of adderall, 1.5mg Klonopin, and 50mg Prozac a day, plus using marijuana 2-3 times a week. I felt scared because the Lab logistics specifically states “no stimulants,” and I had wanted to come off of Adderall anyway, so I decided to experiment by not taking it at all during the days of the lab. I also stopped weed and caffeine cold turkey. All 3 things I would partake in daily.

During the lab I had more energy than ever, slept only 6 hours a night, and got ZERO headaches & without having to use my blue light blocking headache-preventing glasses! I didn’t crave weed or coffee/caffeine once, nor did I ever talk about astrology (which, if you know me, is fucking HUGE). I didn’t even have access to my phone. The only thing I had to focus on was showing up and participating.

Each day became exceedingly more exciting, leaving me hungry for more. I was terrified to come home because I had just found home within myself. I broke through my mental prison. I saw and felt I HAVE A CHOICE! I don’t have to beat myself up or harm myself in order to get “better”. The idea that “I need to get better” in itself is an illusion. I am complete as I am. My timeline is not about speed or destination; it’s about the quality and vitality of the duration. It’s about the journey, man.

*BOOM* Head explosion. I already have everything in me that I need! How silly I was to stay in a trapped death cycle…

The LAYERS tho?? Back to the cycle SO fast.

I was terrified to return home. Terrified to go back onto my phone, live in the environment that I live in, and speak to my family members as a completely new human being. More sensitive than ever, ready to blossom into the next thing. Terrified of falling back into the same old cycles. Inevitable though? Maybe.

Reality Check Point - The words I am typing may be repeated and also follow a non-linear way of thinking due to I don’t fucking know and yet I know, ya know?

What I want to get at are the phrases, thoughts, feelings, rules, embedded and crunched into my back and the sides of my neck, clamping onto my head with a bear trap, knowing at my chest, locking me up. THIS is what I discovered in having a terrible migraine for a week and being so fucking triggered, having vertigo (I only thought old people got that??), and eating so many sweets you could call me Willy Wonka. (But please don’t.)

2 weeks after I got home, I started Rage Club and Gremlin Transformation Preface at the same time. Oooooh boy. I was pumped and ready to go. My spaceholder skills were sharpening, and my risk-taking was off the charts. Then, as I actually began to feel more and see more of what’s really going on, I started to fall apart beyond the parts of me that were already falling off from the lab. My home environment energy and physical space began to grow bigger than me, and my sensitivity to my reality strengthened. So did my gremlin.

I’m not sure when the exact moment was that I shifted from possibility to claustrophobia, but once that switch flipped, I began getting sucked down by the vacuum of my swamp. Each week, it became harder and harder for me to get centered. I kept critiquing myself and finding any way I could call myself bad or fucked up and create stories about other people thinking this about me too.

I turned around and went right back into my mental prison. I began beating myself up, having wild stories…

I feel so vulnerable right now sharing this information with you. I’m literally displaying my bare bones. Things I have so much shame over, I’m shining light on again and again.

There was one point during this storm downhill that I felt so angry because I wasn’t progressing fast enough, sad because all I could do was doubt my ability, and scared because I had a story it was going to take forever for me to get somewhere in life (whatever that means). I wanted control over my timeline, I wanted to speed it up and my gremlin knew just what to do, decrease my meds even more! I went down 10mg on my antidepressant, which might sound like a small increment, but it caused a huge inner rupture.

A few days after decreasing my meds, I realized I should have marked it down on the calendar so I could keep track of how long I’d been off it and if any symptoms happened to monitor. I couldn’t even remember what day I actually decided to stop taking it. What I do remember is feeling this unconscious gremlin joy of control and ultimate risk. I had a dopamine hit of transformation fantasy, aka the bigger the rock bottom, the better the manifestation on the other side. I now see how this is the “no pain, no gain” thoughtware in me. Another version of my mental prison.

At first, I didn’t feel any withdrawal symptoms, so I thought it would be a piece of cake. Then, a week into it, I got vertigo, but I just thought it was a symptom of a liquid state. Then I got a migraine, and the migraine kept getting worse. I spent days in bed and in actual fear of sleep scarcity. I felt and still feel like my skin has been ripped off my body, and my nerves are hanging out so tender and unprotected. Straight up raw. I’ve slipped into the nastiest swamp of paranoia, hiding, can’t go near a computer or phone, everybody hates me, just a wild state of mind and being.

And now here I am, a week and a half into going down on my meds and completely falling apart. I came crashing down during the one call I made myself go to today, and from there, it was game over. My friend held a listening space for me where I realized I’m not on my own team, and I haven’t been for the past couple of weeks. I’m actually abusing myself and doing way too much to my system at once.

I feel sad because I want to be free of medication so badly. I want it NOW. It feels like I’m shackled to this fake system called “I’m sick, something is wrong with me.” And it has literal 3D structures and systems to it, like big Pharma and insurance companies.

I feel so angry because it’s the system that is broken, not the people!!!! There is so little information about antidepressants and how they actually affect a person’s brain and bodies. It’s infuriating!

And I feel angry because I technically “have to” take my meds if I don’t want to go in a complete nervous system crash out like I just experienced. I feel angry because the smarter and kinder way to myself would be to stretch coming off meds over time, over years! YEARS. WTF.

I know, I made the decision to go on meds. I take responsibility for that decision. AND I was 15. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to feel happy and cool, and confident. I truly thought taking antidepressants would change my life and me for the better. I feel sad about this.

I feel sad because people are sold a fantasy when it comes to taking antidepressants.

I feel sad because if I want to take care of myself in a healthy and effective way, then I have to continue taking my meds instead of just radically stopping them.

I feel sad because I chose to shackle myself to the system in order to fit in.

I feel scared because I see right through Big Pharma.

I feel glad because I care, and angry because I want something different.

With Love and Rage,

Maura