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Recently he attacked me for wanting to see my psychiatrist for a med adjustment (perhaps). He goes on a huge rampage about how the whole world is shutting off their feelings by taking meds and walking around all goofy etc. I am on a mood stabilizer, btw, and have fought with the idea of taking them for years. I have now accepted that this is the only way for me to be level. The last thing I need is for someone to try to convince me to toss them again.
He also mentioned in the past that, big deal that he smokes, the rest of the world is on antidepressants etc.
So this got me to thinking. Am I any different from him by using drugs to even out my moods, emotions? This is a med I take every morning. I don't get high from it or even feel any different than my normal self. I still have emotions and I do not feel numb. I am happy and I am sad. When I get more and more crying spells, I realize that I may need an adjustment.
Am I being unfair by not looking at us as the same? Are we both not "natural"? I take meds, and he gets high. I never thought twice about that being the same thing. I know what's right for me and he knows what's right for him. I have myself very confused here. Any input?
It is up to you to decide whether you need the meds and whether you want to take them. Just like it is not your responsibility to determine whether he should quit drinking or using, it is not his responsibility to determine whether your meds are right for you.
In my experience, addicts will seize on any and every opportunity to deflect the attention from the real problem - whether that is blaming someone else, pointing out what someone else is doing, justifying what they are doing because other people do it, etc. That kind of stuff can just be chalked up to addiction. It is easy to bite the bait and get sucked into either questioning something because the A has made it seem logical and rational, or getting confused.
Time to turn the focus back to your own recovery. It does not matter what anyone else thinks of your decisions. If the meds are right for you, they are right for you. In my opinion, needing to take antidepressants or mood stabilizers because there is a chemical imbalance is very different than self-medicating. But that's just my opinion. The only opinion that matters is yours.
Sounds like a great way to justify getting HIGH to me.....just another manipulative tactic :)
My thoughts exactly.
ABF (in recovery and sober a year but a daily pot smoker) went off on a rant at me over my medications for high blood pressure, all about how so many people he knows are being diagnosed with HBP and how "big pharma" manufactures illness to sell drugs, blah blah. This despite the fact that he is almost always present when I take my BP and hears the numbers, so he knows how high it is.
The way I see it, brain chemicals have a lot of control over our mood and our cognitive functioning, so prescription drugs just replace chemicals that our brains aren't producing. No different from a diabetic taking insulin because their body doesn't produce it, or from me taking estrogen when I hit menopause and my natural estrogen production stopped.
I'm not adding a mood-altering substance that wasn't supposed to be there in the first place.
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Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could... Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. - Emerson
I also take birth control pills, does he think thats wrong? Of course not as it benefits him.
I don't know why I let him make me feel so badly. Then I just thought about how he said that he is so impressed with a girl at work because she will admit that she has a problem in her brain and is not afraid to admit that she needs meds. I am so weepy lately and this isn't helping.
And you're right. Focus back on me. It's hard when I feel so miserable. I feel like a loser anyway, then someone tries to reinforce it. It hurts. Back to take what I like and basically leave the whole conversation LOL.
The blaming justification of course. Followed by the apology email of course. Blah!
When I get all worked up over a comment someone has made, I have to ask myself one thing........ is there any truth to it? Is it true? If there is no truth to something, I can usually brush it off, no problem. But, sometimes the universe shows me things I need to see and I will get a reaction to it. I have no idea if this is the case for you, only you can know. But it could be an invitation to explore a little deeper. That was the case for me.
My sponsor used to make comments that made me very upset, suggesting that I might need AA. I had already been going to al-anon for 3 years. So, eventually I sat down and wrote what I could remember about my drinking history...even though I was no longer drinking and hadn't been for 3 years. I couldn't believe what I saw in my own handwriting, I did the same things as my husband, not to the same degree, but I did, I wanted to be honest... for my own benefit and recovery. Even though I quit drinking on my own, I had never addressed the underlying issues that led to it.
So I found my seat in AA. I am so grateful they love me too. Among my homegroup, I am proud to call myself an alcoholic, I sit among the world's most beautiful women.
If you don't relate to my story at all, you may just want to ask yourself, does this relationship bring me more peace? or more stress? The answer to that often gives me an idea if it's HP's will for me. ((hugs))
-- Edited by glad lee on Friday 14th of January 2011 01:28:38 PM
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The prayer isn't for Higher Power to change our lives, but rather to change us.
