The Journey Begins

I flipped through the paperwork, trying to understand exactly what I was about to do. Gingerly, I unscrewed the cap, peeled off a seal and peered inside the bottle filled with small, bluish pills.

This should be a sort of turning point, a thing I remember always, but I simply felt nothing. I swallowed it and chugged a glass of water for good measure. This is the bravest thing I have done for myself. I have always been against medication for this sort of thing. It became a stigma for me and with good reason, this stuff is scary. When it goes wrong, it can really go wrong. I nearly began bawling after I called my mother. She said:

But you will be suicidal.

This is the biggest stigma of anti-depressants: That they will make you feel worse. So why on Earth would a doctor prescibe it? Because with ANY medication, there is risk...if just so happens that this risk involves negative thoughts. But I am not going to let this risk get in the way of living a healthy, more emotionally stable and calm lifestyle.

I have been suffering with anxiety and mild depression for years. It has been since March that I had my last depressive episode coupled with a few panic attacks. However, since I have started my post-graduate studies, it became clear to me that therapy was not going to cut it anymore. Something was keeping me from reaching my goal and my now frequent anxiety attacks (not quite the same as panic) have left me exhausted from just trying to function. My nerves are my worst enemy.

I began listing all the things I would be able to do once healed. Now that I've started a more aggressive plan, I hope to be able to. My first milestone will be to go and face my fear of hypodermic needles. But more on that later.

I want to use this blog to talk about my journey and monitor myself. I will be completely candid, this is the real me, good and bad.

Let the journey begin.

Aum Shanti.