Why Getting Off My Mental Health Meds Was a Bad Idea

I created this artwork while smack-dab in a low mental health place over the jummer. My anxiety was causing my hand to no-joke shake with the paint brush in it, yet I felt so sure: everything I was going through was material and it would take me somewhere. (p.s. Is it obvious that I’d just seen the newest Aladdin movie?) Well, it happened again. I feel like life for me over the past decade has basically been this: me scurrying around scooping up my marbles, then losing them again. Scoop em up, lose em again. Scoop, lose, scoop, lose. The particular Marble Scattering that just occurred, though, I mostly did to myself. In late spring, I had successfully thrived through several consecutive months of strong mental wellbeing and successful management of my ADHD symptoms. I had all my personal/home support systems in check, was straddling clouds of inspiration and creativity, found myself plowing through to-do lists and social endeavors like a John Deere tractor, enjoyed almost all of my inner thoughts about myself and the world, and generally found life to be manageable, maybe even — dare I say it — easy. Let me pause here to offer my medication backdrop: My anti-anxiety go-to med for these 10 years has been Lexipro. I have done lots of personal development around acceptance of this gift from modern medicine; therapy and inner work have assisted in my slow descent off the pedestal that used to be a shrine to my ego. When anxiety first presented in my early thirties...
Source: Psych Central - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Anti-anxiety Attention Deficit Disorder Medications Personal Stories Adhd Adult Attention Deficit Medication Compliance Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors Source Type: news