My main goal is sanity
While others are setting goals of trying to stay in shape and get things done during this quarantine, I am trying to hold onto what I have left of my sanity.
About two weeks ago, I made a post about how my doctors have been trying to kill me with all of the medication they have been pushing on me the last few years. Since that post, I have been cutting back on all of my mental health medication and slowly been weening myself off of the meds while still trying to keep things running at work since I am what they are calling an "essential" employee.
Last night at work, I had to make the decision to step away for a while because things have been getting too bad. I have been experiencing some pretty bad withdrawal symptoms lately and have had some pretty bad emotional lows that I mainly experience while I am at work right now.
If I continued taking these medications, they were going to put me in an early grave. So right now, I would say that my main goal for this quarantine is to regain what I have left of my sanity of get my health back on track.
These withdrawals are getting out of hand. My body is having some uncontrollable muscle spasms and every now and then my brain feels like it is on the verge of being asleep and floating while I am awake and then I am jolted back awake it feels like my brain was just on a roller coaster bouncing up and down to wake it up.
Yesterday before I left work, I felt like I was on auto pilot and then I would "wake back up" and not really know what I was doing for the past few minutes. That was the turning point for me when I knew that I needed to get away from work and everyone during this time and just be back home where I was in a more controlled environment.
I am hoping to be free from one of my medications and hopefully these brain zapping withdrawals by next week. I had reduced the dosage slowly over the past two weeks and I am going to be cutting it out completely while I am home.
One thing I have found that helps with the brain zaps is a 5 mg dose of THC/CBD. I have some edibles that are a heavy indica and they work wonders for calming my brain. For someone that is a combat veteran that is always hyper aware of everything and my brain is constantly working overtime, it is nice to have something that can turn my brain activity down and quiet things a bit, while still allowing me to function at a normal level.
So let's give some dates so we can check the boxes for this challenge and make it official.
By April 13th, I am hoping to be totally free from the one medication that is giving me these withdrawals and I am hoping that the withdrawals from it has stopped.
May 1st, I want to have reduced my main mental health medication to just a half a pill once a day, down from 1 pill twice daily from when I started reducing my meds. I have already reduced to a full pill in the morning and a half in the evening, but I will be reducing to a half in the morning on the 13th as well. That will give me two weeks to balance out at that level before I reduce it again on the 1st.
I am going to be starting meditation today and other ways to relax and try and take control of my thoughts. I want to take at least 10 minutes a day to meditate and I will be doing this with my wife since she is an expert at all of this. I am lucky to have her to support me through all of this and I wouldn't be able to make it through without her.
So that is what I am going to be doing over the next week during my "quarantine" that really isn't much of a quarantine. It is more of a mental health break from work while I withdraw from medication that was killing me from the inside. I will also be playing Animal Crossing. It isn't the type of game that I would normally play, but it is one I can play on my Nintendo Switch while I lay on my bed so I don't have to get up and try and walk around.
My dreams when I get through all of this is to be able to say that I have taken my life and my mental health back.
Thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings. I am sure only half of this made sense because I think my brain shut down halfway through typing this up. I hope that you all are staying safe during these times. Stay awesome and stay healthy.