Self Medicating

[Scattybird]

Hi scrapper – it sounds like you’ve had a tough time – but fortunate to have had a good counsellor to identify the problem.

Glad you have found medication that suits you.

It’s odd reading my old posts – they make me cringe now! Ten months ago I was just starting on this journey and feel I have learned a lot since then. I have since found a good psychiatrist and now take prescribed medication thankfully. No more faffing around with herbal remedies as I did when starting out with this.

I take Ritalin now but it’s not enough on its own. It’s great and has made a huge difference, but I need to give it a helping hand (or is that vice versa?).

To do that, I need to be clear in my mind what I need to do each day. I try to form habits – like a good bedtime routine in an effort to break the cycle of late nights and shattered mornings. I have a launch pad now so I pick up my stuff on the way out and have fewer mornings which are full of frustrations. I also try to change my thought patterns if I am being negative. None of it is easy and it doesn’t happen every day, but it’s easier with the Ritalin. Pre medication it was all impossible. I also eat better now as I am more inclined to cook – a slow cooker helps!

So I think you’re right – expert help is always the way forward. I think when we first acknowledge the problem, there’s perhaps a feeling that it’s not real, or that making some minor adjustment will work. Maybe it does in some cases but personally, 10 months further down the line, I don’t think there’s any substitute for getting professional help (whether that includes prescribed medication or counselling or both).

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[scrapper]

AMEN to that, you are right about needing more though, I am just starting the journey and can tell I will need extra. I am smart enough to know, hopefully I will be smart enough to do it

…

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[allan wallace]

Lurky, that’s a cool av! 😆 Skeletons scare me for some silly reason, dunno why, and the the thought that I have one too is kinda weird too… 😯 I digress, cool av all the same…

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[wyowildflower39]

I have been self medicating with alcohol, marijuana or meth my entire life it seems. Marijuana and alcohol was an accepted social thing my whole family did. I turned to alcohol as an older teenager, then meth by the time i was 21. I ended up using it intravenously until I was 23. I was clean for almost 14 years before i relapsed this last summer. Thank god i didn’t start the needle again. But i knew I was self medicating. While everyone else was bouncing around, I felt calm, centered and not so scattered. Scary stuff. I quit again, and spent the winter being depressed, mean, and anti social.
My advice is get some help. It’s bloody hard as hell, but you can ruin your life. I’m scared of being slave to a drug, wether legal or not. But i cannot risk my family.
You can do this! Thanks for listening 🙂

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