@Molliex I'll do a better job this time, I guess the formatting didn't do me many favours.
I have the headspace app, (impluse buy during a sale) and while I do like Andy, the animations (very cool) and the sleepscapes, (the treehouse one especially) I don't like meditation. I always feel a bit disheartened when people recommend it, like they have unlocked some secret I am incapable of discovering. I find it to be a very claustrophobic, uncomfortable experience. As soon as someone makes me aware of my breathing, I can't forget it again without thinking about something else, whether it be daydream, talk, do something else, so sitting with nothing but the "emptiness" of my mind, where I am told when I can and cannot think or "let the mind do it's thing" I just sit there breathing unevenly, hyperventilating, breathing too deep or too shallow, or trying to keep up with the guidance and keeping it all super inconsistent. I come out with a numb face, disorientated, and not in any way relaxed. Breathing deeply makes me feel awful. Body scans feel really awkward and I don't know what I'm doing. When I'm told to think, I can't think of anything and if I do, it's forced and horrible, when I am told to push thoughts away, I can't. When I think I am not breathing deeply, so I start to breathe unevenly and it's just awful. When I'm told to return to the breath, it's so unnatural and not what they're expecting at all, it's an idiot huffing and puffing, not knowing HOW to breathe. I can't do it sitting up, as my headphones start to feel tighter and tighter, I get more and more uncomfortable and sitting with my eyes closed makes me feel out of control and dizzy. I also don't really understand the different packs, as they all seem very much the same. They all follow the same plot, same instructions...how is one for self esteem and another for anger when they're esentially the same pack? Why does everything force me to return to the breath? Or ignore it? Without CONTROLLING it? How do people breathe?! It worries me that this might be the only thing that "helps"? It just feels like a big waste of time. I'd rather listen to his advice without the breathing and quiet.
For medication, I have a lot of reasons, I don't want to go too far down the panic rabbit hole but essentially my biggest fears are mostly OCD and trauma based, I hate adding chemicals to my body, I don't like medicines for a number of reasons:
- Side effects (all medicines give me the same worry, if I can help it, I never take anything beyond panadol)
- Libido, digestive issues, emotional effects, changes to brain chemistry.
- I quit birth control after a decade of IBS, only to find the pill was causing it. Doctors kept dismissing me, no one cared at all...and it was cured overnight by throwing away the pack. What could this medicine do to me? Do I really have to compromise between emotions and physical health?
- What if I become pregnant? I can't take the pill again. Is it unsafe? What will happen to my child, if not now, in their future? Could I ruin their brain chemistry too? What about the future, what will we learn? My biggest fear is my children could have some irreversable neurological issue that I personally caused, and in a few decades medical research will tell us it was our fault and all I had to do was not take anything. I don't trust doctors. They all lie to me about the risks and don't seem to think big picture. I asked multiple doctors about safe for pregnancy antidepressants, they recommended specific types, I go home and research and they say in bold writing within their pamplets "IF YOU BELIEVE YOU MAY BE PREGNANT, DO NOT TAKE THIS MEDICINE, SPEAK TO YOUR DOCTOR" but when I speak to doctors, they tell me with a shrug "i prescribe this to pregnant ladies all the time! It's fine!" How do they know? What are they causing with their casual actions? My brother is autistic and I am terrified of the same fate happening to my children. I already have him to worry about in my future, when my parents pass. I don't know if I even want children but I don't want a drug to limit me again. Not like that horrible pill did. If after all of these years medication free, I then cause something bad to happen? I'd never be able to live with myself.
- Permanent consequences of medications (again, all medicines give the same worries) What if my libido disappears forever? I recommend not reading medical journals...you find some terrible cases of people left alone to suffer.
- Dependency, I don't want to be on it forever.
- Cocktails, changes, tweaking...how many medicines will I end up on? How many tiny bandaids will they stick over the gigantic wound?
- What if it does nothing? Or too much? Makes me worse?
- I manage okay without it, I don't feel there's a point in tempting fate and making an irreversable mistake.
- People try to comfort me, lie to me, tell me it won't matter and a trial won't hurt, but I don't trust them as far as I can throw them. No way. I'm not losing my ability to function intimately or mentally for a drug.
- What if I'm given the wrong drug? What if it does something terrible and I continue to be dismissed over and over? and I can't ever escape?!
- Withdrawals.
- I've been told many times that a medication won't "fix" everything, and I need to do the work alongside it. But no one can help me understand what that work is...so it seems counterproductive and pointless to bother.
So I guess my life is a catch 22, take the medicine to get over the fear of the medicine. Feel totally disregarded for being "irrtational." I feel betrayed, stuck, frustrated.
Everyone just tells me to take medication and meditate...it feels so hopeless. Those things aren't options.
I just wanted to let you know that I have restored your posts.
