Trial and Error

Effexor, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Lexapro, Ambien, Propanolol short/long acting, Lamictal, Lunesta, Ativan, Clonazepam, Seroquel, Hydroxyzine, Buspar, Ritalin, Concerta, Prozac, Trazadone, and Paxil. If you count these up, you will get to 18. 19 if you count Propanolol short and long. How many medications have you been through? Here is mine. This doesn’t count all of the over the counter ones as well. I wrote these out the other night, and I was nauseated. I instantly went to failure mode. What I wasn’t thinking is how amazing it was that now I only take two to sleep! I was looking at it all wrong. I was sitting on the couch staring at this list and reminiscing on the last 8 to 9 years. I went through hell coming off and starting each and every one of these. Why did it take so many? This is called a health care system fail. What I needed was someone to talk to. I needed someone to be by my side coaching me through life. Back then though, I didn’t want to talk, I wanted to take medication, hope for the best, and just sleep life away. Don’t get me wrong, some of these medications made my life better, they numbed me out. Why do we need numbing to get through life? Because we were not taught how to get through failure, fears, or perfectionism.

We were not taught to talk about life. Talking about fears is fear itself. It is out in the open. As nurses, we are taught to keep everything inside. We are stoic, we are confident, we pretend nothing gets to us. We put on quite the show! That’s what this is right? Our show? What if you started showing what you actually feel? Scary, isn’t it? You might be perceived as crazy, negative, or just plain different. By the way, it’s ok to be different. Be authentic. It scares people because it’s outside of the normal. Why are you living life normally? Why are you posting your perfect pictures on social media? What are you running from? If everyone was more authentic, we would actually come closer together. We would help each other more. We would resonate with one another. We are not all so different. Lots of we comments. That is because WE are all in this together!

Life knocks us down quite often. It knocked me down the other day. Yesterday rather. It knocked me down so hard because life is not fair. I am not talking about my life, I am talking about people who have life altering diagnoses. I came home after experiencing a situation, and I was angry. The Why question came into my head as it has done so many times while working in the oncology field. Why is it that good people suffer? If you know the answer to this, please let me know. So I came home and I started throwing things and consuming alcohol. I wanted to be numbed out. I didn’t want to feel. Still don’t. I called one of my friends who is also in health care and we talked it out, but we never came to a conclusion. We just chalked it up as a loss. It’s all you can do when you don’t know the why behind things. The only positive thing that came out of the conversations was to be grateful for our lives. Step one: Always find gratitude. While writing my long list of pharmacy, I became grateful I had a hell of a counselor, still do, and I was grateful I came out alive.

I didn’t choose to give up, I chose to keep going. Anxiety and depression were my life altering illnesses and I am grateful I went through them the way I did. I am grateful I am here to write and tell you that it is going to be okay, however, you cannot do it alone. Life is not to be spent alone and fighting for yourself. It’s finding people who are grateful for you and want the best for you. If you don’t have those people in your life, it’s time to go searching! Find them! It’s the only way you will survive your own thoughts and feelings. The only way I survived 18 medications was finding the people who brought out the best in me. It wasn’t the medication that made me feel better, it was working on myself and attracting the best of the best. You are, who you surround yourself with.